<@«Ayiy4t<^M 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



I 



TREATISE 



ON 



SANCTIFICATION. 



BY 

GEORGE JUNKIN, D.D. LL.D., 

LATE PRESIDENT OP WASHINGTON COLLEGE, AT LEXINGTON, VA. 



)1 



PHILADELPHIA: 
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

No. 821 Chestnut Street. 



<£*> 



*St 



Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by 

THE TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OE PUBLICATION, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District 
of Pennsylvania. 

STEREOTYPED BY WESTCOTT & THOMSON. 



i4) I 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Preface 7 

CHAPTER I. 

HOLINESS THE TERM AND THING DEFINED 9 

CHAPTER II. 

HAPPINESS — SPRINGS FROM LEGITIMATE ACTION 14 

CHAPTER III. 

HOLINESS AND HAPPINESS — THEIR RELATIONS AND PROPOR- 
TIONS 21 

CHAPTER IV. 

MAN IS UNHOLY 25 

CHAPTER V. 

MAN'S INABILITY TO MAKE HIMSELF HOLY 27 

CHAPTER VI. 

SANCTIFICATION IS THAT PROCESS BY WHICH HOLINESS IS RE- 
PRODUCED IN THE SOULS OF MEN 32 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE HOLY GHOST, THE SANCTIFIER 44 

3 



4 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

PAGE 
ON REGENERATION — SANCTIFICATION BEGUN 49 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE NECESSITY OP REGENERATION 59 

CHAPTER X. 

REGENERATION MYSTERIOUS OBJECTIONS 63 

CHAPTER XL 

EVIDENCES OP REGENERATION 70 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE INHABITATION OF THE SPIRIT 80 

CHAPTER XIII. 

ON SAVING FAITH 84 

CHAPTER XIV. 

ON REPENTANCE UNTO LIFE 90 

CHAPTER XV. 

SANCTIFICATION COMPARED WITH JUSTIFICATION 98 

CHAPTER XVI. 

THE ORDER OF THE GRACES 102 

CHAPTER XVII. 

PROGRESSIVE NATURE OF SANCTIFICATION 106 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

INSTRUMENTALITIES BY WHICH THE SPIRIT WORKS IN THE PRO- 
GRESS OF SANCTIFICATION ,< 117 

CHAPTER XIX. 

TEMPTATION AND PRAYER—MEANS OF GROWTH 126 



CONTENTS. 5 

CHAPTER XX. 

PAGK 
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT 132 

CHAPTER XXI. 

SANCTIFICATION IMPERFECT — OBJECTION... 137 

CHAPTER XXII. 

SANCTIFICATION COMPLETED, NEGATIVELY — REMARKS ON IDEN- 
TITY 141 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

SANCTIFICATION POSITIVE — RUNS INTO ETERNITY .. 148 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE JUDGMENT — A CONFIRMATION IN BLISS : NOT AN END OF 

MORAL GOVERNMENT 156 

1 * 



PKEFACE. 



This little treatise on Sanctification is designed as a 
counter-part to my book on Justification. This latter, 
published first in 1839 took its rise from the agitations of 
the times, caused by innovations upon our doctrinal stand- 
ards, which seriously affected that great central doctrine 
of Christianity. Its substance was first given to the public 
in the Vindication, in 1836 : which was used on the ap- 
peal before the General Assembly of that year. Inasmuch, 
however, as that was both controversial and judicial, it ap- 
peared to me advisable to strip the matter of that form, 
and present the doctrines in a shape better adapted for 
general reading. To the second edition of that work was 
added a short chapter on Sanctification. That brief appen- 
dix is now expanded in this little volume. It is, of course, 
more practical than the former treatise : that, regards 
legal relations; this, moral and spiritual qualities. The 
doctrines, however, of the two books are inseparable from 
each other, and from practical religion. Without the 
atonement, no sinner can be pardoned. Without the 
righteousness — the perfect obedience of Christ, no sinner 

can be justified. Without pardon and justification no sin- 

7 



8 PREFACE. 

nercan be sanctified. And without sanctification — holiness, 
no man shall see the Lord. 

The agitations of these times having thrown me out of 
regular employment, in the pulpit ; it occurred to me and 
to others, that the pen and the press, both rivals and aids 
to the pulpit, might enable me still to preach the ever-blessed 
gospel, and that, even after I shall have passed away be- 
yond the agitations of wars and rumours of wars. 

The Lord accompany, by his Holy Spirit, both this and its 
predecessor, so shall my feeble labours become instrumen- 
tal in saving souls ; and to his name be all the glory ever- 
more. Amen. 



A TREATISE ON SALIFICATION. 



CHAPTER I. 

HOLINESS — THE TERM AND THING DEFINED. 

The meaning of words in the New Testament, 
used to express ideas common to it with the Old, 
cannot be certainly and safely ascertained by re- 
ference to classical Greek. As they are virtually 
translations, we are bound to define and limit them 
by the meaning of the words, in Old Testament 
writings, for which they stand. This rule of in- 
terpretation is a necessity springing from the 
imperfection of all human language. Words are 
not, correctly speaking, vehicles of thought, as 
they are often called : but only arbitrary, conven- 
tional instruments for calling up or suggesting 
thoughts, which have previously existed in the 
mind of the person to whom they are addressed. 
To one born blind, the words red, white, and blue, 
give no ideas, but simply that of sounds ; but to 
him who has had the conception of these colours, 

9 



10 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

the words at once recall them. Moreover, words 
are very generally inadequate instruments — they 
fall short of a full and accurate suggestion of ideas. 
This is felt by all writers and all readers ; and 
often leads to the accumulating of terms — the 
piling up of epithets, whereby the writer or speaker 
labours to develop his idea by many words, which 
he would not do if one could accomplish the object. 
And yet, after all this accumulation, it is felt 
that the thought is very imperfectly presented. % 

We are necessitated, therefore, to look to Old 
Testament usage in settling the meaning of New 
Testament words and phrases. 

The term Sanctification and its cognates come 
prominently under this law of hermeneutics. The 
primary idea, suggested by it, is the setting apart 
of the object or subject from a common to a special 
use or service — but generally a religious use. Jere- 
miah (vi. 4,) calls upon the children of Benjamin 
to sanctify war against Jerusalem — "prepare ye 
war against her." Israel was commanded to 
sanctify all the first born. Thus the seventh day 
was sanctified — set apart to the special use of men- 
tal, moral, and religious culture : the materials for 
the construction of the tabernacle were dedicated — 
consecrated to this particular religious use. So 
the Israelitish people — so all who are admitted by 
baptism into the visible church are holy unto the 
Lord. See Exod. iii. 5: xvi. 23: xix. 6: xx. 8: 
Matt. vii. 6 : 1 Cor. iii. 17 : 2 Pet. i. 18. 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 11 

But the secondary and most common use, at 
least in the New Testament, is that of preparation 
for sacred service. This comes within the region 
of morals. The term sanctification, literally means 
the process of making holy ; and implies a defi- 
ciency or absence of the qualities expressed by the 
word holy. Holiness is an abstract term, express- 
ive of the entire sum of moral perfections. The 
inscription on the high priest's mitre — " Holiness 
to the Lord," — is an ascription to him of all moral 
excellence: "Who is like unto thee, glorious 
in holiness." "God sitteth upon the throne of 
his holiness." " Once I have sworn by my holiness." 
" Judah hath profaned the holiness of the Lord." 
In this absolute sense the term is not applied to 
imperfect beings : yet may we speak of the thing, 
and so also explain the term — under the two- 
fold distinction, of freedom from all impurity, sin, 
imperfection, on the one hand ; and of the 
possession of all purity, uprightness, and perfection, 
on the other. And for convenience we shall desig- 
nate these two aspects, by the epithets negative 
holiness, and positive holiness. 

Negative holiness is ascribable to God ; to the 
angels, who have kept their integrity and conse- 
quently their first estate, and to the spirits of just 
men made perfect ; but not to men upon earth and 
yet compassed with infirmity. 

" I find no fault in him," is the testimony of 
the miserable judge who delivered over the Holy 



12 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

One of Israel to the executioners, and "there is 
no iniquity with the Lord our God." " He is the 
rock, his work is perfect ; for all his ways are judg- 
ment ; a God of truth and without iniquity, just 
and right is he." " Shall not the judge of all the 
earth do right?" But in this negative sense sane- 
tijication cannot be spoken of God while holiness 
may ; he cannot be made holy, for there is no im- 
purity to be removed. Yet we are commanded, 
"Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself — " (Isa. viii. 
13,) and it is foretold " They shall sanctify my 
name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and 
shall fear the God of Israel." (Isa. xxix. 23.) But 
here the primary sense of the word is to be under- 
stood, — they shall consecrate — set apart God, in 
the temple of their hearts and hold him only as the 
object of their supreme love and adoration. 

Neither can the angels be negatively sanctified. 
They have no corruption to be removed, and are in 
this negative sense holy already. But positively 
they are capable of sanctification by an increase of 
purity and perfection, as we shall see. 

The same is true of redeemed spirits already in 
heaven. They are perfectly holy by negation ; 
yet will they be sanctified in the other sense, by 
perpetual increase in spiritual excellence. But 
whilst here in the flesh, even in the negative sense, 
holiness cannot be ascribed to men, but very par- 
tially ; and sanctification, in both senses, is express- 
ive of their condition who believe in the Saviour 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 13 

of lost men : the process is advancing, but not 
complete. . 

Holiness, viewed as a positive state, is the pos- 
session of moral qualities, and the presence of 
these entitles the person to the epithet holy. "The 
Lord hath sworn by his holiness." (Amos iv. 2.) 
"Without holiness no man shall seethe Lord." 
(Heb. xii. 14.) The former passage pledged the 
entire attributes of Jehovah for the punishment of 
Israel's sin ; and when he confirmed the gospel 
promise by an oath, he pledged all his divine per- 
fections for the security of his redeemed. In this 
sense all those passages are to be understood which 
ascribe holiness to the Lord: " Give thanks at the 
remembrance of his holiness—" " Judah hath 
profaned the holiness of the Lord." And so, the 
seraphic doxology, " Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord 
God Almighty" — ascribes to him all good and 
excellent and glorious attributes— justice and 
mercy, goodness and truth. " God is a Spirit, 
infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, 
wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and 
truth;" and the summation of all these we have in 
that one divine word — Grod is Love. 
2 



14 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 



CHAPTER II. 

HAPPINESS — SPRINGS FROM LEGITIMATE ACTION. 

" Happy are thy men," said the queen of Sheba, 
after witnessing the elegancies of the royal palace, 
the richness and splendour of its decorations, the 
number, dress, and beautiful order of his retinue, as 
it was established under the direction and by the 
taste of the most learned and scientific of Israel's 
kings. " Happy are thy men, happy are these 
thy servants, which stand continually before thee, 
and that hear thy wisdom." (1 Kings, x. 8.) 
" Whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he." — " He 
that keepeth the law is Happy." — "Happy is that 
people whose Grod is the Lord." — " Happy is the 
man that findeth wisdom." — ■" Happy is the man 
whom God correcteth." — " Happy is he which hath 
mercy on the poor." From such statements it is 
obvious that happiness is found in a great variety 
of circumstances, and springs from a great variety 
of relations : and it is an interesting inquiry, what 
is that, which, being common to all, justifies the 
common appellation, happy, as applied to all ? 

Is it not this ? that in all these circumstances 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 15 

and relations, there are called into action some 
right principles or powers of our nature ; and that 
they are legitimately and duly exercised. If this 
be so, then we might define happiness by its origin 
and cause ; and say it is a state of mind resulting 
from the legitimate activity of our faculties of 
body, mind, and heart. Johnson's definition — 
" Happiness is the multiplication of agreeable con- 
sciousness,' ' would require the latter phrase — 
agreeable consciousness — to be itself defined. But 
what we here propose coincides with the facts of 
these and innumerable other cases. 

1. There is always activity of body, mind, or 
heart, wherever we use the word happy, as descrip- 
tive of our feelings. When we look upon a beau- 
tiful flower, painting, statue, articles of furniture ; 
or listen to a piece of well-composed and well-exe- 
cuted music, our material frame is called into a 
state of high excitement, of thrilling action, and 
we are pleased, delighted, happy. Some of these 
may moreover affect more than the bodily or- 
gans. 

A painting may, whilst it thrills the nerves, also, 
by its historic substance, at once call the under- 
standing and even the reason and moral affections 
into active play. " The crossing of the Alps," or, 
"the crossing of the Delaware;" "the embarking 
of the Pilgrims :" " the star spangled banner," or, 
"rally round the flag, boys;" what conceptions in 
the understanding and what overwhelming passions 



16 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

do they not arouse ? Let any man look within his 
own bosom, and he will perceive not only the blood 
coursing his veins more rapidly, and his nerves 
quivering throughout his whole system ; but his 
intellect grasping magnificent thoughts : and his 
moral sympathies bearing onward in the most in- 
tense activity.- Now these activities place the mind 
in that state called happy, and this happiness is 
characterized by its antecedent cause. Each pecu- 
liar form of action has its own peculiar emotion. 
If the excitation lies in the bodily organs only, it 
will be followed by a state of mind which we should 
denominate pleasure. The lowest of these forms 
of happiness which result from the gratification of 
the mere animal appetites, are, to a large degree, 
common to us with the mere animals. And when 
men are content with these, or look to them as 
their chief good, they are exceedingly likely to 
make them their god and to give them illicit adora- 
tion — " Whose god is their belly and whose glory is 
their shame." 

2. Hence the limitation of activities, in our defi- 
nitions, to those which are legitimate. Fully aware 
of the tendency to excess and the deception prac- 
tised by calling corrupt pleasures by the name of 
happiness, we would guard against it. Malachi 
reproves Israel — " We call the proud happy; yea, 
they that work wickedness are even set up." This 
misapplication is often mischievous ; for, when all 
accounts are balanced, unlawful actions do not find 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 17 

the balance on the credit side of the sheet. " Re- 
member that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy 
good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things : but 
now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.' ' 
Whatever is in excess beyond legitimate use of 
God's good creatures, will recoil. No man can 
violate the laws of God, physical, intellectual, or 
moral, with impunity. If he eat and drink to ex- 
cess, he may deceive himself into the belief that 
his pleasures are happiness, but misery will follow, 
and gout may throw the balance against him. 
Happiness, after all, is as the gratification of legit- 
imate desire. 

3. There is a phrase in which our topic has to 
do with the idea of a negation. As happiness im- 
plies a positive activity, the negation of action 
implies the absence of enjoyment, but not a con- 
tradictory state — not a condition of misery. The 
clod and the stone are not happy, neither are they 
miserable. But, it may occur, does not the remo- 
val of pain — its mere absence, bring pleasure? 
Doubtless felicity, less or more, is always experi- 
enced on such occasions. It is not however a mere 
negation, when the aching wound, either in the 
flesh literally, or in the spirit, is healed. It is the 
absence of positive activity, contrary to the laws 
of body and mind : and it is the return of either or 
both to their state of legitimate activity which is 
the cause of the pleasure. The removal of an evil, 
which is an unnatural state of the system, in viola- 
2* 



18 A IRBATIS] ON SANCTIFIOATIOX. 

tion of ita laws, is necessarily and instantaneously 
followed by the restoration of its proper 
in other words, of its legitimal 

4. Or, to give another turn to the thought — it 

is the unvarying act of the supreme lav. 

life, self-love that secures happiness. This la 
universal as living existeuee. Every living t: 
1 wii nt to sav: every living thing desires 

happiness. We imply as m hen we in- 

dulge the poetie formula — M The earth mourneth 
and lam :h," " the earth mourneth and fadeth 

away,* 1 •"the new wine mourneth, the vine languish- 
eth." Thus sacred poetry represents the love of 
life of the vegetable fighting for its own well-In 
And it also represents the young ravens as er 
unto God, and all the beasts of the Mold looking, 
and not in vain, unto I r their food. M The 

young lions roar after their prey, and seek their 
meat from (Jod."(Ps, civ. 21.) But this is poe- 
try. Very true: and poetry is more natural than 
prose ; and it is more easily understood. There is 
a love of life in the voting dahlia the young 

lilies, which God clothes so beautifully: and in the 
young lions, whom he feeds in the desert. 

5, But this law of life is found airso, h 
higher development, in the higher nature. It is 
as necessary within the sphere of morals and re- 
ligion as it is among the lilies of the field, the 
prowling inhabitants of the desert, the tenants o( 
the air, and the monsters of the deep. Insects and 



A rni: \ PIS] N - UN PIFICATXOK. 19 

creeping things : birds and boasts: men. angels, 
and devils : — all, all are subjects of this first law 
of nature — self-love — a prime necessity to self- 
preservation. 

Without this, moral government is impossible — 
inconceivable. For, if the desire of happiness, the 
love of life were not, then pain and pleasure were 
as impossible to a man as to a mnshroom : to an 
angel of glory, as to a cedar of Lebanon : to a 
demon in the bottomless pit, as to a rock in the 
profound o\' Vesuvius. But now, if the bruising of 
my flesh or the wounding of my immortal part, 
were a matter of entire indifference — if I were in- 
sensible to pain or to happiness, how could you 
address motive to me ? How could I be influenced 
by hope or by fear ? How could promises to 
obedience or threatening^ to disobedience be of 
any avail ? But, take away the ideas of reward 
and of punishment, and what have you left of 
moral government: u If the foundations be de- 
stroyed what can the righteous do?" ^Ps. xi. 3.) 

Of approach toward this fearful precipice, there 
are some alarming symptoms in our country. Our 
free suffrage — the very expression, " the will of 
the people is the law of the land/' generates — or 
at least hath a strong tendency in the carnal mind, 
to generate the idea, that the will of man, within 
the sphere of law, politics, and trade, has super- 
seded the will of God: audit is greatly to be 
feared, we have millions of population, in whom 



20 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

this freedom of will has already run out into the 
grossest infidelity ; yea into blank, bold, and soul- 
destroying atheism. Certainly, subjection to the 
will of God as such ; whether made known in his 
word, or by the glimmering lights of unsanctified 
reason, have little practical influence in ruling the 
understandings, swaying the hearts, and regulat- 
ing the conduct of that large population which flood 
us from the overflowings of the Danube and the 
Elbe, the Scheldt, the Mayne and the Rhine. 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 21 



CHAPTER III. 

HOLINESS AND HAPPINESS — THEIR RELATIONS AND 
PROPORTIONS. 

The reader is doubtless prepared to fall in with 
our first position in this chapter; viz. That holiness, 
in the order of nature, precedes happiness : that a 
holy being, in the sense explained, must necessa- 
rily be happy ; and an unholy one must, by a like 
necessity, be unhappy. This seems to be an un- 
avoidable deduction from the preceding discussions. 
Assuming that God is holy and just, exercising 
over all his works a government like himself, it is 
impossible not to see that the protection and defence 
of those who do no iniquity, but keep the com- 
mandments of God, must constitute a large part of 
his actual rule ; and the punishment of all iniquity 
its counterpart. And such is the testimony of 
holy Scripture. " God is angry with the wicked 
every day;" "he loveth righteousness and judg- 
ment." In Heb. xii. 14, we are commanded to 
" follow peace with all men, and holiness, without 
which no man shall see the Lord." So Matt. v. 
8, " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall 



22 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

see God." Now for our purpose, whether the 
beatific vision is mainly here intended or not, these 
are pointed proofs of the necessity of holiness, in 
order to happiness. There are two words trans- 
lated blessed in the New Testament. One of these 
signifies a benediction, simply calling for good words 
upon the person — as Luke xix. 38, " Blessed — 
be the king — let the king be well spoken of, who 
cometh in the name of the Lord." (Eph. i. 3,) 
" Blessed — well spoken of — be the Father of our 
Lord, &c." The other word which occurs in the 
eight beatitudes, one of which has just been quoted, 
signifies, happy, and that is here used in a simply 
declarative sense, not in the form of a benediction 
or supplication of a good. He does not say, let 
them be blessed — let a blessing come upon them, 
but asserts the fact : " Happy are, the pure in heart, 
for they shall see God." In this and Heb. xii. 14, 
the connection between holiness and happiness is 
very distinctly affirmed, and I think their relative 
position too. The order of time in regard to graces 
we cannot be said to define ; but at least there is 
an order of nature, in which we can speak with 
safety of them. As truth is in order to goodness, 
so holiness is in order to happiness ; holiness is 
uniform and necessary antecedent; and happiness 
is uniform and necessary consequent ; that is, one 
is cause, the other is effect. 

The same appears from 1 John iii. 2, 3 ; " Be- 
loved, now are we the sons — begotten ones of God, 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 23 

and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but 
we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be 
like him ; for we shall see him as he is. And 
every one that hath this hope in him purifieth him- 
self even as he is pure." Now, as will appear 
hereafter, regeneration is the beginning of sancti- 
fication, and as the word sons is equivalent to be- 
gotten ones — regenerated ones, the apostle makes 
this the starting point of our transformation into 
his likeness : and by consequence our introduction 
to the beatific vision. Purification thus runs 
parallel with happiness. So in Ps. xxiv. 3-5. 
" Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord ? or 
who shall stand in his holy place ? He that hath 
clean hands, and a pure heart ; who hath not lifted 
up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He 
shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and right- 
eousness from the God of his salvation." Here 
again the glory and felicity of heaven are conse- 
quent upon holiness — clean hands and a pure 
heart. 

The beatific vision is that direct and immediate 
vision, contemplation, beholding of God in the 
heavenly world, of which we can have but feeble 
conception. "It doth not yet appear what we shall 
be, but we * * * shall be like him, for we shall 
see him as he is." "Now we see through a glass 
darkly, then face to face." No man, John tells us, 
hath seen God at any time ; that is, the pure God- 
head apart from the humanity. But these passages, 



24 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

and Job xix. 26, where he assures us that, " in my 
flesh shall I see God," do surely set forth a vision 
yet future — a vision or beholding of God in the 
world of glory, transcending all possible concep- 
tions of the human mind, while here in the flesh. 
And what is specially pertinent to our purpose, 
this beatific vision is consequent upon holiness, and 
without this no man shall enjoy it. 

Now if holiness is so indispensable and so effi- 
cient, we may fairly conclude that all advances in 
holiness will run parallel with happiness. In other 
words, that purity of heart is not only the neces- 
sary antecedent, but also the measure of bliss. 
This, however, we must postpone until we come to 
treat of the progressive nature of sanctification. 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 25 



CHAPTER IV. 

MAN IS UNHOLY. 

No person can cast his eye over the world in 
which we dwell, without discovering evidence of 
fearful depravity. Our history is one continued 
narrative of folly, vice, and wickedness. If the 
countless volumes of this vast criminal record were 
removed from all our libraries, our literature would 
be almost annihilated ; dislocated fragments only 
would remain. What have governments been but 
systems of agencies for practising wickedness ? 
What have kings and princes been but scourges of 
the nations ? And still, after all that God has done 
toward ameliorating the human condition, " Man's 
inhumanity to man, makes countless thousands 
mourn.' ' At no period in our history have there 
been more horrible exhibitions of human de- 
pravity than during these few years past. Hea- 
ven-daring impiety vies with man-slaughtering 
ferocity in filling up the record of man's shame, 
and treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath, 
and revelation of the righteous judgments of God. 

To this unblushing human record answers, with 
soul-sickening exactness, the divine testimony. 
3 



26 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

From the blood of righteous Abel down to the 
martyrs of early Christianity, blood stains the an- 
nals of our race. God came down and inspected 
the vast area, and behold it was utterly depraved. 
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was 
great in the earth, and that every imagination of 
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continu- 
ally." "What is man, that he should be clean, 
and he that is born of a woman that he should be 
righteous ? Behold, he putteth no trust in his 
saints ; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. 
How much more abominable and filthy is man, which 
drinketh iniquity like water?" (Job xv. 14-16.) 
And in Rom. iii., the apostle sums up a series of texts 
in proof of the doctrine of total depravity. " As 
it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one. 
There is none that understandeth, there is none that 
seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the 
way, they are together become unprofitable ; there 
is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat 
is an open sepulchre ; with their tongues they have 
used deceit ; the poison of asps is under their 
lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitter- 
ness : their feet are swift to shed blood : 
destruction and misery are in their ways : and 
the way of peace have they not known : there 
is no fear of God before their eyes." But it is 
unnecessary to dwell on this point. In theory, 
all men admit this total depravity, and in prac- 
tice they demonstrate it. The evidence is complete. 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 27 



CHAPTER V. 

man's inability to make himself holy. 

The man who violates law comes under its curse, 
and pollutes and disables himself from all holy ac- 
tions. The fountain is corrupted, and "who can 
bring a clean thing out of an unclean ?" "Not 
one," is Job's answer. Adam, that is man, by his 
sin lost " that righteousness wherein he was crea- 
ted ; incurred the corruption of his nature, whereby 
he is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made oppo- 
site to all that is spiritually good, and wholly in- 
clined to all evil, and that continually :" — [Confes- 
sion^ p. 153.) " Man, by his fall into a state of sin, 
hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual 
good accompanying salvation : so as a natural man 
being altogether averse from that which is good, 
and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, 
to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereto." 
(Confession, p. 47.) So the Scriptures teach. 
" For when we were yet without strength, in due 
time Christ died for the ungodly." (Rom. v. 6.) 
" Because the carnal mind is enmity against God ; 
for it is not subject to the law of God, neither in- 



'28 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

deed can be." (Roni. viii. 7.) "For without me, ye 
can do nothing.' ' (John xv. 5.) " Therefore said 
I unto you, that no man can {duvazcu, is able) 
come unto me, except it were given unto him of 
my Father." (John vi. 45, 65.) 

Now " a rational agent is said to be able to do a 
given thing, when, upon the putting forth of his 
energies toward that thing, it is done : and when it 
does not follow upon such exertion of his powers, 
he is said to be unable. In other words, ability im- 
plies the existence of a power of causation, and 
always refers to the proper effect. Every effect is 
proportioned to its cause, both in nature or quality, 
and in degree. Like produces like. Physical 
ability can produce only physical results. Strength, 
or mere brutal force, can affect only strength or 
resistance of the same kind. Intellectual ability 
can be efficient only to intellectual results. Intel- 
lectual power or ability may plan the machinery 
whereby a man can lift a ton weight : but to say 
that a man's intellect has ability to lift a ton, is 
absurd, equally with affirming that mere natural 
strength is able to plan the machinery. Nor is the 
absurdity a whit less, when it is affirmed that man 
has natural ability to perform a moral act. Each 
part of his nature — his animal, his intellectual, his 
moral powers — has its own peculiar ability — one 
faculty or class of faculties cannot perform the 
functions of another. Animal ability (or strength) 
and intellectual or moral results : intellectual ability 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIEICATION. 29 

and animal or moral results ; and moral ability, 
and intellectual or animal results, are all equally 
absurd. To yield obedience is a moral result — to 
repent (I mean saving repentance) is a moral opera- 
tion — to believe in and love God, are not animal, 
nor intellectual, nor physical effects or results, but 
moral ; yea, the very essence of all morality, and 
therefore, in the very nature of the thing, no 
natural ability of any conceivable kind can qualify 
man to repent and love God. Moral ability alone 
can qualify him — by that only can he turn to God 
and live in him. Now this moral ability exists not 
in the soul unborn of the Spirit. There death 
reigns until the Spirit of life takes up his abode 
.there. " Vindication, pp. 51, 52. 

Sec. 2. This utter inability is itself a sin; and 
this corruption and carnality and enmity are not 
self-apologetic : they do not excuse the perpetrators, 
do not release them from obligations to law, and to 
love and serve God with a pure heart fervently. 
If it were otherwise — if sin were its own excuse — 
if the gambling spendthrift could cancel his bond 
with an empty purse : why then commerce would 
stagnate, because credit would die. Let a man's 
wicked moral bankruptcy be recognised as a fore- 
closure of all demands of duty ; and social order 
and Christian morality are gone. Satan and his 
followers are at once independent of the moral 
government of the universe. Against such conse- 
quences, however, the Bible and sound reason, 
3* 



30 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

which never are opposed, completely protect us ; 
inasmuch as they hold men to their accountability, 
notwithstanding their spiritual bankruptcy. 

Were it not so, no moral agent could commit 
more than one sin : for being then corrupted and 
disabled, and made opposite to all good, he cannot, 
according to this theory, be held accountable any 
farther : no law extends over him. But sin is not 
imputed where there is no law. John tells us that 
" sin is the transgression of the law," (1 John iii. 4,) 
and Paul says, " Where there is no law, there is 
no transgression." But Satan and his associates 
are not the only free intelligences of the universe, as 
this theory teaches. They are just as much bound 
by Divine authority as the angels in glory and the 
spirits of just men made perfect. Their secession 
does not place them outside and beyond the range 
of Jehovah's empire. " Wash ye, make you clean" 
— " Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wicked- 
ness" — " Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways." 
All commands to sinners to forsake their sins are 
declarations of their legal and rightful obligations 
to Divine authority. "Draw nigh to God, and he 
will draw nigh to you: cleanse your hands, ye 
sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double minded." 
(Jas. iv. 8.) Repent, believe. All such are com- 
mandments of authority, and are binding wherever 
applicable. Angels of glory and devils in hell ; 
souls redeemed and in heaven ; and souls lost and 
in the burning lake, are as really and as truly sub- 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 31 

ject to the government of God, as are saints and 
sinners in this middle region where we dwell. In- 
deed, we challenge the human intellect to conceive 
of an intelligent being, endowed with a moral sense, 
that is under no obligation to submit to its Creator's 
authority. 



32 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 



CHAPTER VI. 

SANCTIFICATION IS THAT PROCESS BY WHICH HOLI- 
NESS IS RE-PRODUCED IN THE SOULS OF MEN — ITS 
INSTRUMENTALITIES. 

The word process is here used, for the purpose 
of expressing the idea of complexity. This is not 
an act, accomplished in an instant, but a work, con- 
sisting of a variety of operations ; and implies «a 
variety of instrumentalities and agencies, and these 
operating in diversities of methods, times, and sea- 
sons. As a work we may analyze it into its m- 
strumentalities or the instruments employed in and 
about the operations ; and its efficient agent — the 
Divine Spirit, by whose life-giving power the whole 
change is effected. 

In this chapter let us take up the Instrumen- 
talities. 

1. And first, in general we may say, that the 
entire arrangements and doings of Divine provi- 
dence in reference to each individual whom the 
Lord will bring unto glory, are parts and portions 
of his instruments for their sanctification. Known 
unto God are all his works ; he governs all his 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 33 

creatures and all their actions ; and it is because 
he foreordains whatsoever comes to pass, that he 
knows them all. Of this infinite series of events, 
all that precede regeneration are preparatory in- 
struments. 

2. The place of one's birth has much to do with 
these preparatory steps. Birth in a Christian 
land ; and especially of Christian parents, is or- 
dered of God, with direct reference to the great 
purposes of his mercy. Compare your condition, 
reader, in these regards, with that of the Japanese, 
the Chinese, the Hindoo, the Persian, the wild Arab 
of the desert, the youth of Timbuctoo, the Red 
man of our wilderness, the citizens of Naples, old 
Rome, or southern Ireland ; and how obviously is 
God's partiality to you displayed ? Why are you 
thus favoured ? Is it not that you may have ac- 
cess to all the means of grace, and may thus early 
be led on in the way to glory ? The Lord has thus 
ensured to you all the other means which he ordi- 
narily uses toward the process of sanctification ; 
and among these, the parental care and solicitude, 
so indispensable to the very continuance of your 
being in this world, and in which you have been so 
distinguished from the great masses of infant hu- 
manity. This providence gives you early instruc- 
tion in the way of salvation. Ere you could be 
taught the art of reading, you were taught the 
grand elements of saving doctrine, then, ability to 
read and opportunity to exert it in searching the 



34 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

oracles of God, was superinduced ; you were led 
to the open fountains of spiritual knowledge. 
From the mother's lap and the father's knee, you 
were carried to the house of God, and there, from 
the pulpit, the Sabbath-school, and catechetical 
class, learned the duties and the privileges of re- 
ligious worship. These invaluable blessings were 
yours at a period that lies beyond the reach of 
present reminiscence. Not by memory, but by 
faith in the testimony of others, you know that God 
was thus kind and provident. 

3. Special providences innumerable lead in the 
same direction : health and sickness, but in differ- 
ent ways, have conduced to the same end. The 
former, which ought to be the more influential, has 
not always, indeed not generally, been so. We 
often underrate blessings, until they depart. Sick- 
ness and pain, evils in themselves, are often used 
as means for good. The rod and reproof bring 
wisdom. When we pass down into the valley of 
the shadow of death — into deep and sore afflictions, 
we reap the peaceable fruits of righteousness ; i. e. 
all reap, who are rightly exercised thereby. 

Among these wonder-working providences, none 
are more conspicuous than war. By it, God chas- 
tises his church and its members ; and makes its 
fearful burdens instrumental in forcing the atten- 
tion of sinners and saints to eternal things. In 
what innumerable instances has the Lord come 
down recently to the battle-field and the hospital; 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFTCATION. 35 

and, by occasion of their unutterable sorrows, 
drawn away the hearts of sinful men toward hea- 
venly things ? Oh ! what heart-piercing shrieks 
have gone up, God be merciful to me, a sinner! 
yea, burst forth, with an earnestness utterly un- 
known during health and outward prosperity. As 
the thunder from the watery cloud above him, 
awaked and aroused the soul of the monk of Eisle- 
ben, and led him on toward his conversion ; so the 
thunders of the sulphurous canopy have, by the 
same Divine energy, made the souls of thousands 
to feel themselves trembling on the verge of eter- 
nity, and constrained them to cry out in painful 
consternation — oh ! what must I do to be saved ? 

But you will say, it was not the lightning's flash 
and the thunder's roar that sanctified the soul of 
Luther, nor was it the miles of blazing lines, nor 
the long reverberations of the cannon's dread ut- 
terances, that could convert the thousands who 
have ascended from the battle-fields, or returned, 
maimed in body, but healed in spirit, to the homes 
of the sorrowful yet rejoicing. 

No; but we are speaking of instrumental, not of 
efficient agencies; and beyond doubt, God has made 
the wrath of man, in these most fearful develop- 
ments of it, to praise him, it is devoutly hoped, and 
he will yet more illustriously display his gracious 
power amid these awful scenes, and bring the na- 
tion down in the dust of humility before the majesty 
of his own throne. 



3G A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

4. To the ministry of the word we have just al- 
luded, and now allude to the visible ordinances, 
including the very organization of the church 
itself, as means both of grace and of growth in grace. 
On these, however, we may not delay. Let us 
pay a more marked attention to the truth of the 
word, the great doctrinal substance, as an instru- 
ment. Our Lord, in his prayer, properly called 
his, says, " Sanctify them through thy truth : thy 
word is truth." — And " for their sakes, I sanctify 
myself, that they also might be sanctified through 
the truth." (John xvii. 17, 19.) So he had before 
expressed the same (xv. 3.) "Now ye are clean 
through the word which I have spoken unto you." 
And Paul says (Eph. v. 26.) " That he might sanc- 
tify and cleanse it with the washing of water by 
the word." James also teaches the instrumentality 
of the truth, (i. 18) : "Of his own will begat he us 
with the word of truth." 

5. The relations of the truth to this great work 
of sanctification are not so generally agreed upon, 
among even evangelical men, as could be desired. 
Has the word of truth an instrumental agency only ? 
or has it an efficient force — a generating power ? 
To the former we return an affirmative and to the 
latter, a negative response. We believe the Scrip- 
tures and the truths they contain, ascribe all effi- 
cient agency in the premises to the Holy Spirit : 
and that the word of truth becomes an efficient in- 
strumentality only when the Spirit employs it. 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 37 

just so is it with the living ministry : we are 
mighty to pull down the strongholds of sin and 
Satan; but it is only "through God." "Our 
sufficiency is of God." We are commanded to 
take " the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of 
God" — (Eph. vi. 17.) Now a sword has in it no 
power — no efficiency for good or evil. It is per- 
fectly harmless in itself, and will destroy no life 
and maim no limb. But the sinewy arm that wields 
it may produce fearful havoc. The analogy is 
striking. The word of truth — the doctrines of 
Scripture have no life in themselves, and cannot 
communicate what they have not. They have an 
adaptation for use, by a living agent, and when- 
ever the Holy Spirit takes up his sword, it becomes 
a sharp two-edged instrument, driven home by his 
almighty hand. All the above and many other 
scriptures teach the simple instrumentality of the 
word directly and indirectly : the former on their 
face and the latter indirectly by imputing the en- 
tire life-giving efficacy to the Spirit. Others we 
may add-^-" That which is born of the flesh is 
flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." 
And (John vi. 63,) "It is the Spirit that quickeneth" 
— i. e. that giveth life — and 1 Pet. iii. 18 — "Put 
to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit." 
Then we may go back to the beginning, and there 
we find it was the Spirit that generated life from 
the chaotic mass and that breathed into Adam's 
nostrils the breath of life — of lives, viz : of the 
4 



88 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

body and the soul. Accordingly, when spiritual 
life was lost in the transgression, it became, under 
the new covenant in the economy of redemption, 
the work of the same Spirit to reproduce this life 
in the soul ; and this is the beginning of sanctifica- 
tion. And 1 Cor. vi. 11, declares, " But ye are 
washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in 
the name of the Lord, and by the Spirit of our God." 

But we may not press this farther at present. 
If the Holy Ghost is the producer and cherisher of 
life in the soul, as we must see more fully at 
another time, then it follows, that there is no life- 
giving power in the truth itself; the letter killeth, 
it is the Spirit that giveth life ; and this presents 
another part of the process, which is merely pre- 
paratory. 

6. The relative position of conviction ; its na- 
ture and agency, and its end. 

1. Its nature and agency. It is an operation of 
the understanding — a result of the judging power. 
"When a jury brings in a verdict of guilty, the man 
is said to be convicted ; and the method, by which 
they reach this result, is the same as any other 
judgment of the mind. They compare the conduct 
of the man, as exhibited in the evidence, with the 
rule as laid down in the law : if the conduct agrees 
with the law, they so declare, and the man is ac- 
quitted. But if they perceive his conduct to coin- 
cide with the definition of murder, as contained in 
the law, they declare the fact so to be ; and the 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 39 

man is convicted. Now, so it is at the bar of con- 
science. The truths of the moral law are laid 
along-side of a man's own conduct, as revealed in 
his consciousness and memory ; he compares them 
together ; he perceives their inconsistency, and his 
conscience pronounces the verdict. So the accusers 
of the dissolute woman " being convicted by their 
own conscience, went out." 

Such is the province of natural conscience — 
" Their conscience also bearing witness, and their 
thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing 
one another." (Rom. ii. 15.) In the original state 
of man, this power of conscience was full and 
adequate. But sin blinded the mind, and conscience 
is no longer adequate. Its knowledge of the law 
is too imperfect. The whole mind is so debased 
and enfeebled, that it is unable to comprehend 
spiritual things. " But the natural man receiveth 
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are 
foolishness unto him : neither can he know them — 
(he is not able, ou duvarac) because they are spiri- 
tually discerned : but he that is spiritual judgeth 
all things" — (1 Cor. ii. 14.) Hence the inability 
of conscience to produce thorough conviction of sin: 
and here it is that the Holy Spirit interposes. He 
takes up his sword — the doctrines of truth con- 
tained in the law, and cuts to the heart — enlightens 
the mind ; quickens the conscience, and leads on to 
the condition which cries out, u Men and brethren, 
what must we do ?" " Ephraim, what shall I do 



40 A TREATISE ON SANOTIFICATION. 

unto thee ? Judah, what shall I do unto thee ? 
for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as 
the early dew it goeth away. Therefore have I 
hewed them by the prophets ; I have slain them by 
the words of my mouth : and thy judgments are as 
the light that goeth forth." (Hos. vi. 4, 5.) Con- 
viction of sin results from the illumination of the 
mind in the knowledge of the law, and its results 
are painful, but in various degrees. If depravity 
has been excessive, and habits of sinning long in- 
dulged in, and so deeply rooted ; and if the illumi- 
nation is full and large, the soul must be thrown 
into great depths of distress — " Out of the depths 
have I cried unto thee, Lord." 

8. Its end ; if this is not followed up by a cor- 
responding enlightenment in the truths of the 
gospel, the painful emotions must be great, and will 
continue and increase without end. For this 
anguish there can be found only one remedy — the 
light beaming from the Sun of righteousness. 
Hence we remark again, 

Conviction of sin, per se, is not a blessing. To 
show me how vile I am, is no favour ; unless you 
show me also how I can escape from my sins and 
their just consequences. But if the wound in the 
spirit is speedily followed by the healing balm, 
then may I desire the stroke of the Divine hand for 
the sake of what is to follow. I can afford to take 
the nauseous medicine for its remote sequence : 
remove this sequence, and I reject the potion. 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 41 

"What is hell but the land of everlasting regrets. 
M Tophet is ordained of old ; yea, for the king it is 
prepared ; he hath made it deep and large ; the pile 
thereof is fire and much wood ; and the breath of 
the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle 
it." (Isa. xxx. 33.) 

" The breath of God, his angry breath, 
Supplies and fans the fire ; 
Then sinners taste the second death, 
And would, but can't expire." 

But I said the degrees of this conviction, and 
its painful accompaniments, are vastly various : 
they indeed range from the dreadful extreme, pre- 
sented here by the poet, to the slightest painful 
apprehension, vanishing away into incipient com- 
fort and consolation. For, in the essential nature 
of conviction, it lies within the region of the intel- 
lect, and is clearly distinguishable from the 
emotional states of the mind — the feelings that ac- 
company it. These views force upon us the infer- 
ences. 

1. That conviction is not conversion. Many 
experience clear convictions of sin — they see 
plainly that they have violated the law and are 
justly exposed to its penal sanction, who yet 
go no farther ; and stopping short, like the seed by 
the way-side or on the stony ground, never attain 
to true conversion. And not a few are thus ruined 
by falling into the error pointed out in our next 
inference ; viz : 
4* 



42 A TREATISE ON SANCTIEICATION. 

2. That the sorrows which often accompany or 
follow even defective conviction are mistaken for 
repentance. Whereas the emotions which ac- 
company the turning of the soul from sin to God, 
are clearly distinguishable from the turning itself, 
which is the true idea of repentance, as we shall* 
see anon. 

3. A third inference, is the important practical 
rule — never pray for severe law work upon the 
conscience. It is not a necessary accompaniment 
of true conversion. We are not informed that 
any of the apostles experienced it, except Saul, 
who was born out of due time. And, though they 
were pricked in the heart at the pentecostal revival, 
yet it would seem that their painful emotions were 
of short duration, and speedily followed by spiritual 
comfort and good hope through grace. No, the 
Spirit of all grace can produce the necessary degree 
of conviction, preparatory to the beginning of ac- 
tual sanctification, without filling the soul with 
dreadful terrors and driving it upon the confines 
of the burning lake. In the regular and orderly 
state of the church ; where the youthful mind is 
early and earnestly imbued with the precious truths 
of the word — both of law and gospel — we shall 
hardly find out the day of our children's conversion, 
and we and they must learn it by the fruits. 

To all these, let us add the power of persuasion — 
warnings, threatenings, promises, entreaties — all 
arguments addressed to fear or to hope. " Almost, 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 43 

thou persuadest me to be a Christian." "Know- 
ing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." 
Undoubtedly the church, and especially through 
her ministry, has done much in this line toward the 
sanctification of lost and polluted man. She is 
ever ransacking the highways and the hedges and 
exerting herself to the utmost, compelling them to 
come in and fill the Lord's house and feast off its 
fat things. All that is powerful in reasoning ; all 
that is alarming in the terrors of eternal wrath ; 
all that is enticing and attractive in the glories of 
heavenly felicity ; the people of Grod— the ministry 
of the word have pressed and do still press upon 
the consideration of sinners ; and this to the utter 
exhaustion of moral suasion. But all these fall 
short of that efficiency which brings men into a 
state of holiness before God. They do not convert 
the soul. They are only instrumental and pre- 
paratory : another power is needed : a real efficient 
agent having in himself life and holiness, and there- 
fore a capability to generate them in the souls of 
lost men. 



4 * 



44 A TREATISE OX SANCTIFICATION. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE HOLY SPIRIT THE SANCTIFIER. 

That holiness proceeds from the Spirit may well 
be inferred from the name so frequently given to 
him in Scripture. David, deploring his own sin and 
pollution, entreats, " Cast me not away from thy 
presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me." 
(Ps. li. 11.) In the history of the miraculous con- 
ception, he is constantly called the Holy Ghost. 
Eighty-six times is this appellation given to him 
in the New Testament, besides four times it is trans- 
lated Holy Spirit : making ninety times. And all 
gracious works are ascribed to him. Under the 
baptism by the Holy Ghost all graces are compre- 
hended. We are baptized in his name equally 
with that of the Father and of the Son. Because 
of his work in the miraculous conception, Christ is 
called the Son of God. " The Holy Ghost shall 
come upon thee, and the power of the Highest 
shall overshadow thee : therefore also that holy 
thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called 
the Son of God." (Luke i. 85.) Thus, the human- 
ity of the God-man was consecrated, set apart, 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 45 

sanctified by the Spirit ; much more, we infer, 
does the humanity of his redeemed require this 
sanctification. So the Spirit came upon him 
at his baptism ; at once a significant sign and 
type of our baptismal consecration to holy ser- 
vice, and of our purification and preparation 
for it. 

But not only by his name and offices just men- 
tioned is his dignity and sanctifying power intima- 
ted. The unpardonable nature of the sin against 
the Holy Ghost establishes the same. " Where- 
fore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphe- 
my shall be forgiven unto men ; but the blasphe- 
my against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven 
unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against 
the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him ; but who- 
soever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall 
not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither 
in the world to come." (Matt. xii. 31, 32.) This 
fearful sin consists in a persevering, wilful, intelli- 
gent rejection of salvation, as it has been brought 
nigh to the soul, by the Spirit enlightening the 
mind, pricking the heart, alarming the conscience. 
When a man has thus been impelled to acknow- 
ledge the truth and to make a deliberate profession 
of it, and afterwards turns back, crucifying the 
Son of God afresh and putting him to an open 
shame ; doing despite to the Spirit of all grace, he 
turns back unto perdition : he rejects the only pos- 
sible way of salvation ; he tramples under foot the 



46 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

only blood that can take away sin ; and lie seals 
his damnation. See Heb. vi. 1-6, and x. 26-29 : 
1 John v. 16. Stephen charges the mob, "Ye 
stiff-necked, and un circumcised in heart and ears — 
i. e. rejecters and haters of the truth — ye do al- 
ways resist the Holy Ghost." (Acts vii. 51.) The 
doleful consequences of this sin evince the trans- 
cendant dignity of the person and the indispensa- 
ble necessity of his work. Could it have been 
said of these persons, "but ye are washed, but ye 
are justified, but ye are sanctified in the name of 
the Lord and by the Spirit of our God," this fear- 
ful sin could not have been sealed upon their souls. 
But having persevered in resisting light and know- 
ledge, the plainest proofs of the Messiahship of 
Christ and the convictions of their own consciences, as 
stirred up and moved by the Holy Ghost, nothing 
remained to them, but a certain fearful looking- 
for of judgment and fiery indignation, which must 
devour them in Tophet, as adversaries of the Holy 
Spirit. 

Having used this as argument, it may be proper, 
before leaving it, to throw out a caveat against an 
unjust and injurious use of this unpardonable sin. 
People have often taken up the idea that they 
themselves have committed it, and so write bitter 
things and make themselves miserable on that sup- 
position. Nothing is more unreasonable and un- 
scriptural. For the sin consists essentially in a 
hardening process — a callous, dead insensibility 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATIOH 47 

and disregard of spiritual things. " Now the 
Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times 
some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to 
seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils ; speaking 
lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared 
with a hot iron." (1 Tim. iv. 1, 2.) If, therefore, 
a person is perplexed and in distress on account 
of this fear, he gives, in the very fact, evidence 
that he has not sinned this sin which hath never 
forgiveness. For he shows tenderness of con- 
science and anxiety about his soul's salvation : he 
displays reverential regard toward the Spirit and 
his work. 

The interview between Christ and Nicodemus, 
John iii., sets beyond all doubt the question of effi- 
cient agency, in reference to the first part of sanc- 
tification. The new birth, there ascribed to the 
Spirit, is in chap. i. 13 ascribed to God. " Which 
Fere born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, 
nor of the will of man, but of God." " The love 
of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy 
Ghost, which is given unto us." (Eom. v. 5.) — 
" That the offering up of the Gentiles might be ac- 
ceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost." 
(Rom. xv. 16.) But now the shedding of love 
abroad in the heart, as we shall see, is of the very 
essence of sanctification, and we are made accepta- 
ble unto God by the Spirit's influence and power : 
" Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, 
saith the Lord." In 2 Cor. iii. 18, we read, "But 



48 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATI03ST. 

we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the 
glory of the Lord, are changed into the same 
image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit 
of the Lord." Here is progressive sanctification. 
Farther evidence of the Spirit's work must come 
up in the next chapter. 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 49 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ON REGENERATION — SANCTIBTCATION BEGUN. 

" THERE being in man's spirit by nature no holy 
thing, it is necessary that the very germ of spirit- 
ual life be implanted: the dead soul must be made 
alive. This is a change from death unto life : not 
indeed in a natural sense ; not in reference to the 
body : but to the spirit. ' That which is born 
of the flesh is flesh ; and that which is born of the 
Spirit is spirit.' This doctrine, new and strange 
to the carnally-minded, was taught from the be- 
ginning ; and is found in the Old Testament. ' I 
will take away the hard and stony heart out of your 
flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh. A new 
heart will I give unto you, and a right spirit will I 
put within you.' And many of the typical wash- 
ings symbolized the same thing." Junk in on Jus- 
tification, p. 334; 

** This holy change is wrought by divine power. 
Our Saviour tells Nicodemus, ( Except a man be 
born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into 
the kingdom of God.' The analogy of a new birth 
signifies, that it is entirely the work of the sancti- 
5 



50 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

fying Spirit, that conveys a principle of life in or- 
der to the functions of life. It is the living im- 
pression of God, the sole efficient and exemplar of 
it, the fruit and image of the divine virtues. It is 
expressed by the new creature. The production 
of it is attributed to God's power, displaying itself 
in a peculiar, excellent way, even in that precise 
manner, as in making the world. For, as in -the 
first creation, all things were originally of nothing ; 
so in the second, the habit of grace is infused into 
the soul that was utterly void of it, and in which 
there was as little preparation for true holiness, 
as of nothing to produce this great and regular 
world. And although there is not only an abso- 
lute privation of grace, but a fierce resistance 
against it, yet creating, invincible power does as 
infallibly produce its effect in forming the new 
creature, as in making the world. Hence it ap- 
pears, that renewing grace is entirely the work of 
God, as his forming the human body from the dust 
of earth at first ; but with this difference, the first 
creation was without any sense in the subject, of 
the efficiency of the Divine power in producing it ; 
but in the new creation, man feels the vital influ- 
ence of the Spirit, applying itself to all his facul- 
ties, reforming and enabling them to act according 
to the quality of their nature." [Bates's Works, iii. 
417.) Such is the language of the Westminster 
age, showing that there is no new theory in the 
theology of our day among evangelical divines. 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 51 

The nature of this change may be learned from 
the phraseology by which it is expressed in Scrip- 
ture. 

(a) It is called a new creation. (2 Cor. v. 17.) 
" Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new 
creature/' (Gal. vi. 15.) " For in Christ Jesus 
neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncir- 
cumcision, but a new creature.' ' In producing this 
change, the Holy Ghost puts forth an energy of 
creating power ; just as he did when he breathed 
into man's nostrils at first the breath of lives. 
Consequently 

(b) It is a passing from death unto life. (1 John 
iii. 14.) " We know that we have passed from 
death unto life, because we love the brethren. 
He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." 
Observe, abideth in death; implying the moral 
death of the soul ; and that in this state it would 
remain, but for the creating energy of the Spirit. 
So Col. iii. 3 : " For ye are dead, and your life is 
hid with Christ in God." And Eph. ii. 5: " Even 
when we were dead in sins, hath he quickened — 
(made alive) us together with Christ." 

(c) Born again — born from above — (John iii. 
1-12.) I need not write off this passage. All Bible 
readers are familiar with it, and i. 13 has been 
quoted above. (1 John iii. 9 :) " Whosoever is born 
of God doth not commit sin" — and before, (ii. 29.) 
" Every one that doeth righteousness is born of him." 
And iv. 7— " Every one that loveth is born of God." 



52 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

—And v. 1, iv. 18. So 1 Pet. i. 23: " Being 
born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incor- 
ruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and 
abideth for ever." This oft repeated term is 
surely intended to describe a very great change in 
our spiritual man. 

(d) It is a passing from darkness to light. Col. 
i. 13 : " Who hath delivered us from the power of 
darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom 
of his dear Son." 1 Thes. v. 4, 5: "But ye, 
brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should 
overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children 
of light, and the children of the day : we are not 
of the night, nor of darkness." 1 Pet. ii. 9 : 
" That ye should show forth the praises of him who 
hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous 
light." Paul (Acts xxvi. 18) describes his mission 
as appointed " to open their eyes, and to turn 
them from darkness to light:" and 1 John ii. 9, 
teaches that " he who hatethhis brother is in dark- 
ness — and walketh in darkness" — he is in an un- 
regenerate state, and his conduct accords thereto. 
Paul (Eph. v. 8, 9) thus describes the change : " For 
ye were sometime darkness, but now are ye light 
in the Lord. For the fruit of the Spirit is in all 
goodness, and righteousness, and truth." And all 
these and other similar passages are given, because 
" God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." 

(e) Removing the heart of stone and substitut- 
ing a heart of flesh. Ezek. xi. 19, and xxxvi. 25, 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 53 

26, 27 : " Then will I sprinkle clean water upon 
you, and ye shall be clean : from all your filthiness, 
and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A 
new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit 
will I put within you : and I will take away the 
stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you 
an heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within 
you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye 
shall keep my judgments, and do them. ,, Here we 
have first, the promise of the Holy Spirit, under the 
sign of sprinkling clean water upon you : parallel 
with Isa. xliv. 3, "For I will pour water upon him 
that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground ; I 
will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessings 
upon thine offspring." Thus the baptism of the 
Holy Ghost is pointed out, and the manner of it 
— by sprinkling or pouring upon the subject. Then, 
in v. 27, this sprinkling is expounded of the Spirit. 
Then 3dly, we notice the effects of this Spirit 
poured, a new heart of flesh bestowed and the heart 
of stone removed — regeneration. Then 4thly, 
practical holiness — walking in my statutes. The 
same nearly in Ps. li. 10 : " Create in me a clean 
heart, God; and renew a right spirit within 
me." 

(/) A change from enmity to love. Compare 
Eom. viii. 7 — " The carnal mind is enmity against 
God ; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither 
indeed can be," with v. 5, — " Because the love of 
God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, 
6* 



54 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

which is given unto us." Nor is there any power 
but he, that can destroy the carnal enmity and fill 
the soul with love to God and to his children : 
wherever, therefore, this change is effected, there we 
have a work of the Holy Spirit. 

(g) Perhaps there is a little inaccuracy in so 
doing, yet will we place the change of the will in 
this class. Opposition of will in man toward God 
is obviously characteristic of his natural state. Ye 
will not come to me that ye might have life. Turn 
ye, turn ye, why will ye die? God reveals his 
will as the rule of man's action, and man wilfully 
moves in the opposite direction. Now the Scrip- 
tures speak of a people being subdued. Address- 
ing the Messiah, the Psalmist (ex. 2) says, " The 
Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion; 
rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.' ' The 
governing authority of Messiah shall be exercised 
even among his enemies ; and the consequence is 
described in the next verse — " Thy people shall be 
willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of 
holiness from*the womb of the morning ; thou hast 
the dew of thy youth." The people voluntarily 
offer themselves as free-will offerings unto Zion's 
Priest-king. More distinctly is the idea expressed 
in Phil. ii. 13 : "For it is God which worketh in 
you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." 
A divine energy is put forth for the renewing of 
our wills. And Heb. xiii. 21 contains the same : 
"Now the God of peace make you perfect in every 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 55 

good work, working in you that which is well- 
pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ." The 
disposition — the inclination of will, is the result 
of his working in you. Let these suffice to give 
us an idea of the general nature of regeneration 
from the phraseology of Scripture. 

2. The nature of this change may be further as- 
certained from its sequences. Effects indicate the 
nature of their producing cause ; and we may rea- 
son both ways, either from causes forward to their 
effects, or from effects backward to their causes. 
But as we will have occasion for this, when we 
come to inquire for the evidences of regeneration, 
it will be profitable to postpone this evidence of 
change until that subject comes up in course. 

3. Regeneration is an instantaneous change. 
It is not like Sanctification, (of which it is a part,) 
complex, and successive ; but the immediate effect 
of a single act. One moment the soul is dead ; 
and the next it is alive : " It is entirely," says Dr. 
Bates, " the work of the sanctifying Spirit, that 
conveys a principle of life in order to the functions 
of it." Where there is no natural life, there is no 
natural action ; so, where there is no spiritual life, 
there is no spiritual action. Give the principle, 
and you shall have the practice : supply the faculty, 
and you shall have the function. When the com- 
mand issued, " Lazarus, come forth," the creating 
energy of the Spirit re-produced the life; the vital 
functions were instantly exerted. This brings us 



56 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

into close proximity with another position, whose 
discussion can scarcely be held separate from this, 
and we will save time and not create confusion, by 
starting another point, viz. 

4. That the soul is passive in regeneration. Our 
spirit is the subject of the change ; and not, in any 
correct sense, the agent in its production. By this 
we do not mean, that man's spirit is like a marble 
block under the hand and chisel of the sculptor, 
which has no motion whatever, or capacity to move 
and act. On the contrary, we know the soul to 
be active in many respects. The intellect, the un- 
derstanding, the reason, the emotions and passions, 
are all in operation before and up to the moment 
when the new life is generated, and they continue 
so afterwards. But then, it is not any of these 
activities ; nor all of them combined, that generate 
this new life — this new creation. The power that 
causes it, is not in them, but in God the Holy 
Ghost. All that goes to prove the Spirit's exclu- 
sive activity, also demonstrates the soul's passivity 
— to use a term invented by the opposers of our 
doctrine. The apostle, Eph. ii. 1, says, "You were 
dead in trespasses and sins. ,, But proceeds in- 
stantly to speak of their activity in that dead con- 
dition. " Wherein in time past ye walked accord- 
ing to the course of this world, according to the 
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now 
worketh in the children of disobedience : among 
whom also we all had our conversation in times past 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 57 

in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the 
flesh and of the mind : and were by nature the 
children of wrath, even as others." Notwithstand- 
ing this strenuous and energetic activity in the 
service of Satan, "we were dead in sins," and so 
the proper subjects of regenerating power, v. 5. 
" Even when we were dead in sins, God hath 
quickened us together with Christ," — brought us to 
life. Now this quickening by the Spirit — this mak- 
ing the soul alive, is inconceivable, is impossible, 
if the death in sin did not before exist. The in- 
stantaneousness of the change may easily be con- 
ceived and believed, from its nature, and also from 
the apostle's assertion, as to the resurrection of the 
body, and the change of those who shall be found 
on the earth — " In a moment, in the twinkling of 
an eye, at the last trump." (1 Cor. xv. 52.) If 
the dead matter in the graves, and the living men 
above ground can be so suddenly changed, how 
much more the dead souls. 

Moreover, let the objector make the effort, to con- 
ceive the spiritual life of the soul to be gradually 
produced ; and that partly by its own activity ; and 
let him raise the question, — but what if the pro- 
cess were suspended exactly in the middle ? Can 
he conceive of a soul half-regenerated ? A spirit 
half-born ! A man possessed of half a spiritual 
life ! ! The absurdity of these half-born, half-life 
twin conceptions, may convince him, that in reality 
he denies regeneration altogether, and occupies the 



58 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

ground of Dr. Paley, who says — " There may be 
Christians, who are, and have been, in such a reli- 
gious state, that no such thorough and radical 
change, as is usually meant by conversion, is or 
was necessary for them ; and that they need not 
be made miserable by the want of consciousness of 
such a change.' ' (Paley' s Works, iv. 167.) This 
is daubing with untempered mortar. See Ezek. 
xiii. 10 and xxii. 28. 

It is therefore untrue, as some affirm, that a man 
has as much ability to change his own heart as to 
split a log of wood, is as active in the one case as 
in the other : or that sanctification is a series of 
holy acts, and regeneration is the first act of the 
series. These are soul-destroying errors ; and 
amount to a rejection of the entire scheme of sal- 
vation by free grace. 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIEICATION. 59 



CHAPTER IX, 

THE NECESSITY OF REGENERATION. 

A thing may be absolutely or conditionally neces- 
sary. An absolute necessity is, when it could not 
and cannot be otherwise. Under no possible or 
supposable state of things could it be different from 
what it is. Perhaps in this high and bold sense, 
God's being and incommunicable attributes may 
be said to be the only absolute necessities. No 
human mind can conceive the non-existence of 
God ; or of any of his essential attributes. The 
fool indeed hath said, there is no God; but he said 
it " in his heart ;" it was his corrupt lusts that dic- 
tated the expression. His intellect never conceived 
its truth ; his understanding never believed it. 

A conditional necessity is, when a thing must 
be in order to the existence of something else. 
We express it commonly by the word must. On 
the condition or hypothesis that I am to live in the 
enjoyment of health and comfort, I must — i. e. it 
is necessary for me to eat wholesome food. We 
express the condition very commonly by the word 
if. If the ship's passengers are to be saved, these 



60 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

sailors must — it is necessary for them to abide in 
the ship. If thou wilt have life, keep the com- 
mandments. Life is the reward of obedience, this, 
therefore, is the condition of life. This is what 
Edwards calls a necessity of consequence. The re- 
lation between the two things is such, that the one 
must and will follow the other. There is between 
them an unknown and mysterious connection, 
which we designate by the words cause and effect — 
or causality. But we are totally ignorant what it 
is. The most we can make of it, is the mere ver- 
bal expression or definition — cause is uniform and 
necessary antecedent; effect is uniform and neces- 
sary consequent. But let the simple-hearted reader 
know, that this definition is a mere subterfuge, 
under which the metaphysician conceals his igno- 
rance. We do not understand what this principle 
of causality is. Facing the question of conditional 
necessity, with this bit of metaphysics in his hand, 
he will soon find that to be necessary, which sus- 
tains the relation of antecedent or cause, to some 
certain other thing. 

Now the Saviour assures Nicodemus, that to be 
born again, is a necessary condition to entering 
into the kingdom of God. The new birth is not 
an absolute necessity : for the sinner may go down 
to hell. But on the hypothesis that he is to enter 
the gates of glory, his regeneration is indispensa- 
ble — " Ye must be born again ;" this is the indis- 
pensable antecedent. Such is the relation or con- 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 61 

nection between these two things, as established of 
God, that if a person is born again, he will cer- 
tainly enter the kingdom of heaven. Let the an- 
tecedent be and the consequent must be. 

Now although we know so little about the princi- 
ples of causality, as to be obliged to resolve it ul- 
timately into the will of God ; yet can we go a step 
behind this, in the present case, and show, in the 
deep depravity and consequent incompetency of 
man to enjoy spiritual things, why this conditional 
necessity exists. In reference to the Holy One of 
Israel, we can perceive why, both as to his holiness 
and his justice, this change must be. On the score 
of holiness, obviously it would be inconsistent to 
receive a polluted creature into the society of the 
holy. On that of justice, for God to treat the sin- 
ful rebel, with all his rebellious spirit still in him, 
as though he were an obedient child, would be to 
abandon righteousness and relinquish the moral 
government of the universe. " Shall not the Judge 
of all the earth do right ?" To abhor sin and its 
pollution is a necessity absolute, existing in the 
nature of God : and this constitutes the basis of 
the conditioned necessity expressed by the term 
" must be born again." To enter the kingdom with 
this guilt and pollution upon him, is an absolute 
impossibility. The nature of the holy God and 
the nature of the unholy man are contradictory, 
and can never agree. "What concord hath Christ 
with Belial ?" One or the other must be changed, 
6 



62 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

and, God being immutable, the change must be made 
in man. 

Moreover, as it regards man himself; supposing 
all objections waived on the part of God ; and the 
door of heaven thrown open to sinners, with all 
their corruptions still on them, welcome to enter ; 
still the change must take place. For manifestly, 
in the society of the pure and the holy and just ; 
the impure and the unholy and unjust could not 
dwell. Even here, where sanctification, in the best 
estate, is very imperfect, unregenerate men do not 
find themselves happy in the society of godly per- 
sons. The elements of their life do not, and can- 
not flow in symphony and tune with the sons and 
the songs of Zion. How very difficult it is, to 
bring them into the very imperfectly purified atmos- 
phere of the church militant, our half-filled though 
beautiful houses of worship, our prayer-meetings 
and religious conferences, abundantly testify; and 
how then could they breathe the pure air of heaven, 
where holiness dwells ; and the spirits of the just 
made perfect tune their harps to praise redeeming 
love ? Thus we and they are thrown back upon 
the awful, yet blessed truth, 

" The sinner must be born again, 
Or drink the wrath of Grod." 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 63 



CHAPTER X. 

REGENERATION MYSTERIOUS — OBJECTIONS. 

Ie this change is a creation, it must be mysteri- 
ous. A creature cannot comprehend the exercise 
of creating power. The production of something 
out of nothing is perhaps understood by the pro- 
ducer himself alone. Hence the adage, Ex nihilo, 
nihil fit — out of nothing, nothing is made. And to 
the ancients, ignorant of the true God, it is not at 
all strange that this should appear a proverbial 
truth. Accustomed to reason from effects back to 
their causes ; and familiarized with the process of 
inferring the nature of antecedents in the physical 
or material world, from their consequents, they 
could not avoid establishing the rule of proportion, 
and maintaining that like causes produce like effects; 
or reversely, like effects proceed from like causes. 
This was obvious enough, and very beneficial within 
the sphere of mere material phenomena. But when 
they were forced to rove beyond the world of mat- 
ter ; when its very existence became an inquiry ; 
ignorant of any adequate cause of its production 
many assumed its eternity, and from the maxim, 



64 A TREATISE ON •SANCTIFICATION. 

JEx nihilo, nihil fit, some denied that it had any 
cause : others, unwilling to acknowledge the in- 
adequacy of their philosophy, ran into wild specu- 
lations about the origin of the world ; which are of 
some use to us, inasmuch as they show the earnest 
yearnings of the soul after a knowledge too mys- 
terious for its unaided comprehension. Now, this 
plodding and floundering of the human intellect, in 
vain search of an adequate first cause ; or, in other 
words, of a creating power, proves the operations 
of such power to be among the deep things of God. 
If he did nothing, but what man's feeble intellect 
could perfectly comprehend and fully explain, he 
could not command the respect and adoration of 
his creatures. But he is wonderful in counsel and 
mighty in working. " I will praise thee ; for I am 
fearfully and wonderfully made ; marvellous are thy 
works ; and that my soul knoweth right well." (Ps. 
cxxxix. 14.) " He holdeth back the face of his 
throne, and spreadeth his cloud upon it. He hath 
compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and 
night come to an end. The pillars of heaven trem- 
ble, and are astonished at his reproof. He divideth 
the sea with his power, and by his understanding 
he smiteth through the proud. By his Spirit he 
hath garnished the heavens ; his hand hath formed 
the crooked serpent. Lo, these are parts of his 
ways ; but how little a portion is heard of him ? but 
the thunder of his power who can understand?" 
(Job xxvi. 9-14.) " As thou knowest not what is 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 65 

the way of the Spirit, nor how the bones do grow 
in the womb of her that is with child : even so thou 
knowest not the works of God who maketh all 
things." (Eccl. xi. 5.) Incomprehensibility as to 
the mode, is an obvious characteristic of creating 
power. And therefore our ignorance of the mode, 
is no better argument against the fact of regenera- 
tion, than it is against the fact of generation. 

And yet this is the first and most obvious objec- 
tion. " How can a man be born when he is old ?" 
Even so earnest and sincere a seeker as Nicodemus 
felt the difficulty. "Sow can these things be?" 
Manifestly the mode in which the change is effected 
is the very point of his difficulty. And it is equally 
manifest that the " Teacher come from God" does 
not meet this precise point. He does not attempt 
to explain the method and manner of the Spirit's 
operation. All he insists on is the fact — ye must 
be born again ; and then exposes the unphilosophi- 
calness of the objection. 

Did our Saviour blench before an objector and 
evade a direct answer to the precise point of the 
difficulty ? Did he shrink from an objection by an 
anxious inquirer, and refuse to give the information 
best calculated to relieve him ? Nay : but he held 
him up to the exact relief needed. A new life in 
his soul was the pressing, felt necessity, of this 
master of Israel, and he is instantly and perseveringly 
referred to the only source whence it could be ob- 
tained. The how — the quomodo is not attempted, 
6* 



66 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

for the simple reason, that even the cultivated 
mind of this educated man, could not be made 
to understand the mode of a Divine creative in- 
fluence : and farther, because the knowledge, if 
possible, would be unavailing. A new heart was 
the crying necessity, and not any abstruse theory 
of life-generation. 

The unreasonableness of objecting on the ground 
of ignorance as to the mode of the Spirit's influ- 
ence, he then exposes. " The wind bloweth where 
it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but 
canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it 
goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.' ' 
Here is a natural phenomenon, perfectly familiar, 
and yet the mode of this familiar fact lies hidden 
from you. The winds and the sea are all regulated 
and controlled by Divine power, but do you know 
how? If then, the fact of the wind's motions, as 
it is exhibited in providence, is obvious, and yet 
you know not the modes of its movements, why 
should it not be so also with the fact of the Spirit's 
power, in new-creating the soul? You avail your- 
self of the wind — you breathe it and receive its 
beneficial effects in purifying the element in which 
you live, but understand not whence it cometh and 
whither it goeth, why should it be otherwise with 
the Spirit, when he breathes into the soul the breath 
of a new life ? " So is every one that is born of 
the Spirit." 

The modes of Divine influence and power are 



A TREATISE Otf SAtfCTIFICATION. 67 

equally inscrutable, all over the material world, 
the spiritual world, and the commixture of the two 
in man's nature. In the conflicts between the in- 
fidel geologists and other votaries of natural sci- 
ence and Christianity, the latter has yielded too 
much to the assumption, that the modes of influ- 
ence in physical laws are understood. This is not 
true. The natural philosopher is as entirely igno- 
rant of the mode of antecedence and consequence, 
called the law of gravitation, as is the Christian 
philosopher in regard to the mode of the Divine in- 
fluence in regeneration. And thus is it with all 
that are called laws of nature. The forms of their 
expression merely intimate an order of actual se- 
quence ; they make no pretension, unless in the 
hands of mere sciolists, to explain what causality 
is, or how cause and effect are linked together. 
When, therefore, the apostle (1 Cor. xv. 51) says, 
" Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all 
sleep, but we shall all be changed," he announces no- 
thing peculiar to spiritual science. Similar myste- 
ries abound in the physical world ; and in the meta- 
physical. Who professes to tell us how the soul 
and body of man influence one another ? how the 
image jof the object presented to the eye reaches 
the mind ? What engineer has undertaken to 
build a bridge across the chasm between ontology 
and pneumatology — the world of matter and the 
world of mind ? Let naturalists then acknowledge 
that their field of philosophizing is full of unex- 



68 A TREATISE ON SANCTIEICATION. 

plained mysteries ; and let all men cease their ob- 
jection to the doctrine of regeneration, because its 
mode is a mystery. 

What does the Spirit do in this change ? — we 
are sometimes asked, what addition does he make 
to the soul ; what faculty has the regenerated which 
does not exist in the unregenerate ? Is there any 
new faculty added ? 

The answer to this objection will depend very 
much on the meaning attached to the word faculty. 
If it mean an organic power, such as the faculty 
of sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling ; then 
we deny that such organic power or faculty is given 
in regeneration. Even a blind man is not restored 
to sight, when he is born again. The deaf ears 
are not physically unstopped. But if by faculty 
be meant an ability, capacity, or power to do acts 
for which there was no power before ; then we af- 
firm such faculty is given in the new creation. 
Old things are passed away, all things are become 
new. There is superadded in the regenerate, a 
faculty of spiritual discernment. 1 Cor. ii. 14 : 
" But the natural man — the unregenerate — re- 
ceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for 
they are foolishness unto him : neither can h#> know 
them, because they are spiritually discerned. But 
he that is spiritual judgeth all things." Here is a 
new power added, a faculty given which he had 
not before. The change in the man born blind and 
restored to sight by our Lord is not set forth in 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 69 

more decided and distinct terms. Beyond doubt, 
the case of the blind man is intended to illustrate 
the subject of regeneration ; and it forms a beauti- 
ful illustration of our answer to the objection 
against mystery in the mode. The Pharisees ha- 
rassed, and tried to distract the poor man, by rais- 
ing this difficulty. What did he do unto thee ? How 
did he open thine eyes? The simple response con- 
stantly was, " He put clay upon mine eyes and I 
washed, and do see." Their pertinacious pressing 
upon him of the question of mode, shows how they 
were galled by the simplicity of the truth. And 
the indifference of the happy man as to the mode, 
while he held on to the fact, is instructive. 
" Whether he be a sinner I know not ; but one 
thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see." 
Little care I as to the manner of my power of 
vision ; I see, that satisfies me. 



70 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 



CHAPTER XI. 

EVIDENCES OF REGENERATION. 

That a change so great should take place, in a 
mind conscious to itself of living powers, and yet 
make no revelation of itself in the consciousness of 
that mind, it were difficult to believe. Especially, 
when the change is the creation of a new life-prin- 
ciple of incessant activity, it is hardly conceivable 
that it should lie hidden and unknown in the 
bosom. On the contrary, it is most reasonable to 
expect this new and active principle and power, to 
work itself into notice ; and, by the display of its 
activities to evince the reality of its being. What 
then are the evidences of regeneration ? Without 
professing to furnish a full and perfect response, 
let us note the following. 

1. A general modification of views in the mind — 
old things pass away and all things become new. 
And here we must have some minor detail. 

(a) The intellectual perceptions of the law of 
God and of the gospel of his grace are remodelled. 
The law formerly appeared a severe rule indeed, 
but addressed to external things and requiring 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 71 

outward compliance ; and so not extremely difficult 
of fulfilment. " All these have I kept from my 
youth up." " I was alive without the law once" — 
alive, — confident and bold in the belief that I had 
lived up to its requirements. Now, " I have seen 
an end of all perfection, but thy commandment is 
exceeding broad" — when it came in its breadth and 
spirituality, " sin revived and I died." I saw it 
legislated to the heart and required the subjection 
of all the inner man. The gospel too appears a 
different thing. Formerly it was a mere temporary 
aid to my supposed and almost complete good 
works ; a new rule, slightly modified, in kind con- 
descension to my slight imperfection — a new law of 
grace, requiring sincere, although not absolutely 
perfect obedience : now, it is no relaxation of law, 
but comes with a full and perfect satisfaction to all 
its claims, and points out clearly how this fulness 
becomes available. Not one jot or tittle does it 
abate, of the most complete fulfilment of law. But 
all this not by my doings, but the Saviour's works. 
(b) The world's pleasures — the earth's wealth 
and grandeur have undergone a great change. I 
see through a new medium that alters the aspect 
of the whole. Its distinctions, its honours, its 
gilded glories, its civic ambitions, its military glare 
and blood-stained triumphs — all these how changed ! 
My understanding weighs their worth in the 
balances of the sanctuary, and the judgments of the 
mind make them but very little things. "What is 



72 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and 
yet lose his own soul ?" 

(e) Views of the Redeemer are different. Before 
he was as a root out of a dry ground, having no 
form, nor comeliness ; and when I beheld him, there 
was no beauty in him, that I should desire him. 
After this change, he rises before my eyes all glori- 
ous, having no spot or wrinkle — the rose of Sharon, 
the lily of the valley — yea, he is altogether lovely. 

(d) The material world all around appears differ- 
ent. Formerly indeed, the beauties of nature were 
a source of enjoyment. I could feast my eyes for 
long hours, strolling over the flower garden, the 
green meadow, the bending harvest field, the dis- 
tant woods, the towering mountains — the grand and 
glorious starry firmament. But alas ! how little 
did I see of God in the flower, the field, the wood- 
lands, the towering mountains, or even the starry 
expanse ! How little did I see of him in the clouds 
or hear in the wind ! How little headway did I 
make, in reasoning up through nature unto nature's 
God ! But now, lo, how changed ! All nature is 
full of God — the God of justice and the God of 
grace. I see him in the snow white lily ; in the 
crimson streaks of the tulip, painted by his own 
hand ; in the modest rose, that blushes to behold 
its Maker : I see him opening his bountiful hand 
in the golden waves of the wheat lands ; in the rich 
rustling green of the corn fields ; in the exuberance 
of the garden ; in the bloom and the pendent 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATIOX. 73 

burdens of the orchard ; his voice I hear in the 
moaning waves of the majestic forest ; in the cloud 
and thunder of the distant mountain ; I see him in 
the mystic dance of the planetary world and the music 
of the spheres ; I trace his footsteps above the stars 
of God, and behold him as the Sun of righteousness 
upon the throne of his glory. Oh, yes : now, that 
his own bright light shines upon my soul, I can 
reason up through nature unto nature's God. 

*2. The emotional states are different from their 
former selves — the feelings are changed. Emotions 
are dependent upon the intellectual states, and, 
consequently, when these change so must those. 
That the heart be changed, and yet its feelings re- 
main the same, is an impossibility, very nearly re- 
lated to an absurdity. If the enmity is slain — the 
carnal mind crucified, the general current of feeling 
must change. There may remain some evil affec- 
tions ; but there must be those that are good. If 
the tree is made good, the fruit will be so too. If 
the fountain is purified, pure waters will flow from 
it. Two classes of feelings cover the whole ground 
— those of attachment and love ; and those of aver- 
sion and hate. The renewed mind turns away 
from the very objects of its former regard ; and 
turns toward those it formerly despised. And here 
we must arrest this discussion, for it runs us into 
the general subject of repentance, which merits a 
chapter for itself. 

3. Habitual inclination of thoughts and feelings 
7 



74 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

in the right direction prQves the mind and heart 
to have been renewed. Where our heart is, it is 
exceedingly probable our "treasure will be also." 
" For our conversation — our habitual course of 
action — is in heaven ; whence also we look for the 
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:" Phil. iii. 20. "If 
ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things 
which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right 
hand of God:" Col. iii. 1. If our thoughts carry 
us, as it were by stealth, away after heavenly 
things, it is certainly a favourable sign. " Or ever 
I was aware, my soul made me as the chariots of 
Amminadib :" Can. vi. 12. To the renewed 
mind heavenly things are the main objects of. 
desire — the treasure ; they are the point of attrac- 
tion, and whenever released from earthly influen- 
ces, which draw it aside from heavenly contempla- 
tion, the mind returns to this point — 

— " In every clime, the magnet of his soul, 

Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole." 

This too occurs in our slumbering moments. 
When half awake and half asleep — which is the re- 
gion of dream-land — we find thoughts of God and 
heaven intruding themselves into the chambers of 
the half-open consciousness, it indicates the habi- 
tual bent of the soul. " For a dream cometh 
through the multitude of business," and this class 
of dreams so coming, are influenced by the trains 
of waking thoughts, and manifest their direction. 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIEICATION. 75 

" They that are after the flesh do mind the things 
of the flesh, and they that are after the Spirit the 
things of the Spirit." 

4. Nearly allied to the foregoing, is the saying 
of John, before quoted : " We know that we have 
passed from death unto life, because we love the 
brethren:" 1 John iii. 14. This is exceedingly 
simple, and of easy application. Am I a child of 
God ? If so, his other children must be objects of 
my affectionate regard. Whenever and wherever 
I see the lineaments of the family countenance, I 
must find an object for filial affection. He that 
loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is be- 
gotten of him. If we wish to see the reason of this 
evidence, we have only to inquire, what is the state 
of feeling, in the unrenewed mind, toward the holy 
ones of God. " If the world hate you, ye know 
that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were 
of the world, the world would love his own ; but 
because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen 
you out of the world, therefore the world hateth 
you :" John xv. 18, 19. But we all were of the 
world once ; and were by nature the children of 
wrath even as others. " For we ourselves were* 
sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving 
diverse lusts and pleasures, living in malice and 
envy, hateful and hating one another :" Tit. iii. 3. 
Consequently, if now we love the brethren, a change 
must have been wrought in us ; and we know that 
the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, by the 



76 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

Holy Ghost, which is given to us. Thus the evi- 
dence is conclusive. 

But some may inquire, how can I know that I 
love the brethren ? How do you know that you love 
your husband, your wife, the child of your bosom, 
your father, your mother, your sister, your brother ? 
How ? Why, by the inner conscious activities of 
your heart, striving ever to do good to the object 
of your love : and by this outward embodiment of 
it in deeds of kindness. All, therefore, dear 
reader, that is wanting to the fulness of this proof, 
is to look within and discover there true love to 
the children of God. You will, of course, surely 
not mistake sectarian zeal for Christian charity. 
You will not substitute hatred for other sects, in 
place of love for Christians. You will not inquire, 
does he belong to us ? Is he a Presbyterian ? a 
Methodist ? a Baptist, an Episcopalian ? But sim- 
ply is he a Christian ? Is he a child of God, a 
brother of Jesus ? Then, with an affirmative 
answer, you throw the arms of your love around 
him, and feel that you yourself too are a child of 
God and an heir of glory : that as you love him 
that is begotten of him, you are of the same blessed 
household of faith and love. 

5. Love to God dwells in the hearts of all that 
are begotten of him. Regeneration is described 
in Col. iii. 9, 10, as a putting off of the old man, 
with his deeds, and a putting on of the new man r 
which is renewed in knowledge after the image of 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 77 

him that created him." Now God is love, and he 
that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in 
him : nor is there a more prominent characteristic of 
the Divine image than this, "for love is of God; and 
every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth 
God." The same course of remark, as under the 
last evidence, is applicable here, and we need not 
repeat it. Only one turn to the thought may be 
added : viz. that on the secondary question, Do I 
love the Lord ? we have this simple test ; Do I keep 
his commandments ? " If ye love me, keep my 
commandments." The existence of love to God, 
where formerly there was only the enmity and hate 
of the carnal mind, is proof indubitable of a total 
change : and the Spirit of obedience, leading to 
constant efforts to fulfil the law, proves the exist- 
ence and genuineness of this love. But, as this last 
point will come before us in another relation, we 
waive it for the present. 

6. The witness of the Holy Spirit establishes the 
fact of regeneration. " For ye have not received 
the spirit of bondage again to fear ; but ye have 
received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry 
Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness 
with our spirit, that we are the children of God." 
Rom. viii. 15, 16. It is by his witness-bearing, 
that he becomes the Spirit of adoption, in which he 
gives in the soul practical and satisfactory evidence 
of our change of heart. In reference to this con- 
junct testimony of the Spirit of God and of our own 



78 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

souls, there is room for some variety of opinion, 
but chiefly there are two explanations. One is, 
that the Holy Ghost operates directly and im- 
mediately with and upon our souls, not using any 
instrumentalities in this work, other than those 
preparatory to the regenerating act. Thus, our 
spirit has an immediate knowledge — a knowledge 
of its change, not through any medium whatever. 
This, if I understand the idea, is not distinguish- 
able from regeneration itself: but is involved in it : 
the evidence and the thing of which it is the evidence 
seem to run together and become identical. The 
witness-bearing is as mysterious and as inexplicable 
as the life-giving act itself. The safety of this 
view I doubt. It is in great danger of running 
into wild superstition — hallucination, ecstasies and 
raptures. Very probably it lies at the foundation 
of an error in regard to the time of regeneration. 
If the change — and his knowledge of it, are con- 
temporaneous, as seems to be the conception, then, 
it must follow, that every person could tell the very 
day and hour of his new birth : a superstition that 
has often disturbed the church and distracted and 
distressed many minds. As well might you deny 
a man's natural birth, unless he could remember 
the hour of its occurrence. 

The other view makes the conjunct witnessing, 
subsequent to and distinct in time and manner, 
from the change itself. It presupposes the perma- 
nent inhabitation of the Spirit in the believer. It 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 79 

assumes, as the text teaches, two distinct witnesses 
conjointly testifying to the truth of the same fact. 
To this the phraseology leads us. It must mean 
our Spirit as renewed ; and its witness must be after 
regeneration and not cotemporaneous with it. This 
view avoids the danger above alluded to. It makes 
this conjoint witnessing a work, and not simply an 
act. It therefore requires time and the inhabita- 
tion of the Spirit, and so belongs not to regenera- 
tion properly, but, being subsequent to it, must be 
referred to its proper place, in the progressive 
work of sanctification. 



80 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE INHABITATION OF THE SPIRIT. 

The Holy Ghost, as God, is omnipresent. There 
is no point in space from which he is absent. 
" Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, or whither 
shall I flee from thy presence ? If I ascend up 
into heaven, thou art there : if I make my bed in 
hell, (the grave or the invisible world,) behold, thou 
art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and 
dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there 
shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall 
hold me:" Psalm cxxxix. 7-17. But this omni- 
presence of the Spirit is not what the Scriptures 
mean by the indwelling or inhabitation. True it 
is, he is thus present in our inmost being, and 
therefore he is privy to our most secret thoughts. 
But thus he is present to all beings, good and bad. 
The inhat)j.tation, however, of which we speak, is a 
different matter in some respects : it indeed includes 
this omnipresence ; but it goes much farther. He 
is, in a very peculiar manner, the inhabitant of the 
body and the spirit of the regenerated. " What ! know 
ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 81 

Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and 
ye are not your own ? For ye are bought with a 
price : therefore glorify God in your body, and in 
your spirit, which are God's :" 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20. 
The allusion seems to be to an item of common 
traffic. A man purchases a house, moves his fam- 
ily and goods into it, and there takes up his per- 
manent abode. The dwelling and all its appurte- 
nances are his own, and he has the right of undis- 
turbed occupancy and use. This is a very different 
matter from a man's sojourning in the house of 
another ; or of " the way-faring man, who turneth 
in to tarry for the night," and is gone by the 
morning light. Thus also the Saviour discourses 
in his long address at the first sacramental supper, 
" And I will pray the Father, and he shall give 
you another Comforter, that he may abide with 
you for ever ; even the Spirit of truth ; whom the 
world cannot receive, because it seeth him not ; 
neither knoweth him ; but ye know him ; for he 
dwelleth with you, and shall be in you :" John xiv. 
16, 17. So in 1 John ii. 27 : " But the anoint- 
ing which ye have received of him abideth in you, 
and ye need not that any man teach you ; but as 
the same anointing teacheth you of all things,"&c. 
So in Rom. viii. 9-11: "But ye are not in the 
flesh, (in a state of unregeneracy,) but in the 
Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. 
Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he 
is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body 



82 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

is dead because of sin ; but the spirit is life be- 
cause of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him 
that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, 
he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also 
quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwell- 
eth in you. ,, This personal in-being is begun, 
when the Spirit, being sent from the Father, at 
the supplication of the Son, commences a work of 
conviction to terminate in conversion and sancti- 
fication : and must be distinguished from occasional 
influences exerted by him in the conscience, where- 
by the soul is partially aroused and alarmed ; but 
which prove evanescent and temporary. Such are 
deplored by the prophet. " Oh, the Hope of Israel, 
the Saviour thereof in time of trouble, why should- 
est thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a 
way-faring man that turneth aside to tarry for a 
night ?" Jer. xiv. 8. 

These occasional visits, it is greatly feared, are 
often mistaken for gracious operations ; and are 
thereby improved, by the grand adversary, as a 
means of lulling the soul to the entertainment of 
false hopes and fatal security. Not so, when a 
work of grace is to be begun and carried on : then 
this indwelling — this personal, operating presence, 
of the Holy Ghost, is fixed and unchangeable : the 
person of the subject becomes a temple of the Lord, 
and in it he abideth for ever. " I will never leave 
thee, nor forsake thee :" Heb. xiii. 5 : " Know ye 
not that ye are the temple of God, and that the 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 83 

Spirit of God, dwelleth in you. If any man defile 
the temple of God, him shall God destroy : for the 
temple of God is holy, which temple ye are:" 1 
Cor. iii. 16, 17. Now, that he has taken up his 
permanent abode in this temple, and begun the 
work of its purification in creating it anew, the 
Holy Ghost proceeds toward its perfection. 



84 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

ON SAVING FAITH. 

This caption suggests at sight the idea, that 
there is a faith which does not save the soul. And 
this, alas ! is true to an alarming extent. James 
speaks of a dead faith, that is common to deceived 
and deceitful men, and to fallen angels. " Even 
so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. 
Thou believest that there is one God ; thou doest 
well: the devils also believe, and tremble:" Jas. 
ii. 17-19. 

For the right understanding of this whole matter, 
let us advert to the general principle. Faith is re- 
liance on testimony. It is a natural principle of 
the mind, an element innate, or con-created with 
us ; an essential attribute of our being, without 
which we would not be men and could not be ra- 
tional and accountable agents. There is no part 
of our being more extensively useful and more in- 
dispensable to be used than the law of belief — the 
disposition to receive and rest upon the testimony 
of other intelligent and rational beings. It is not 
the result of experience, as Hume assumes, but an 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 85 

original law, anterior to all experience. Every 
human being, we might amplify and say every ra- 
tional being, is predisposed to receive as true what- 
ever is testified unto by another. And so far from 
faith or belief being an acquired habit — the result 
of experience derived from observing that one and an- 
other and another has told us the truth ; unbelief, dis- 
trust, refusal to receive as true, whatever others have 
testified, is the acquisition of experience. All men 
naturally believe what is told them, until they 
learn, by sad experience, that some men will lie : 
and generally it requires us to be often deceived 
by falsehoods, before we can school ourselves into 
a due and necessary degree of caution. Childhood 
is the period of the simplest belief, and this sim- 
plicity of confidence is the leading and prominent 
characteristic of children. They believe all that is 
told to them, until, discovering falsehood, they 
learn to doubt. Now, it is to this characteristic the 
Saviour refers, when he says, "Except ye be con- 
verted and become as little children, ye shall not 
enter into the kingdom of heaven:" Matthew 
xviii. 3. 

This natural law of belief has for its direct ob- 
ject, veracity in the testifier ; it accredits him as 
a man of truth that will not lie ; and refusal to do 
this is an accusation and charge of falsehood, and 
exceedingly offensive. Hence the reason of the 
fact, that few things so fire up a man's indignation 
as the questioning of his veracity. It is a virtual 
8 



86 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

declaration of his unfitness for human society; for, 
obviously, without faith in testimony, society could 
not exist. Such insult was offered, at a very early 
period in our history, to the Author of our exist- 
ence, by the creature of his hand. God had testi- 
fied, " In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt 
surely die." Satan testified, " Ye shall not surely 
die." Here are two testifiers and two testimonies 
in direct contradiction to each other ; both cannot 
be true ; which will Adam believe ? — to which will 
he append his seal, recognizing his veracity ? — and 
to which will he affix the stigma of falsehood? 
Manifestly, then, unbelief goes into the very es- 
sence of Adam's first sin. He believed that old 
serpent the devil ; he disbelieved the God of truth 
and righteousness. 

Yet this fearful iniquity did not annihilate the 
natural law of belief; but it brought spiritual death 
instantly upon the soul of man ; blinded his un- 
derstanding ; corrupted his heart ; and so disabled 
him utterly from discerning spiritual things ; and 
thus rendered faith in God, as a spiritual exercise, 
impossible. Now regeneration restores this faith. 
It is " through sanctification of the Spirit and be- 
lief of the truth," that the grace of faith is repro- 
duced in the soul of man. This reproduction is 
purely gratuitous and gracious. Never had man 
returned to confidence in God, but for the creation 
anew in Christ Jesus. The law of belief is rein- 
stated in his soul, as at the beginning ; but with 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 87 

this important appendix, that its continued exist- 
ence and operation are guarantied by the infallible 
suretiship of the second Adam. " By grace are 
ye saved, through faith ; and that not of your- 
selves ; it is the gift of God." 

In the matter of salvation from death as a pun- 
ishment for sin ; and of justification which secures 
life eternal by constituting us righteous in Christ, 
this faith is prominent. In exercising it, the soul 
sets to its seal that God is true, in his proffer of 
forgiveness through the efficacy of the atonement 
or satisfaction made to Divine justice by the suffer- 
ings of Christ ; and in the proffer of eternal life 
as the reward of the righteousness of Christ im- 
puted to us ; and it is in this peculiar relation it is 
called saving faith. But we are not to suppose, 
therefore, that faith concerns only our legal rela- 
tions ; in which matter we have no direct concern 
with it in this treatise. On the contrary, it is in 
perpetual requisition and constant activity during 
the whole process of sanctification. Thus Peter, 
in his address in the synod of Jerusalem, advo- 
cates the admission of the Gentiles into the church, 
on the ground that the Holy Ghost "put no differ- 
ence between us and them, purifying their hearts 
by faith :" Acts xv. 9. And Paul speaks of faith, 
"which worketh by love." And James insists, 
chap. ii. on faith working, showing that faith is 
saving, within the sphere of sanctification, as really 
as in the matter of justification. In truth, faith is 



88 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

indispensable to every Christian duty. He that 
cometh unto God must believe that he is ; and that 
he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him ; 
and without faith it is impossible to please God. 
Even the doctrines of salvation are unprofitable, 
until they are mixed with faith in them that hear 
them. And the biography of faith, recorded in 
the eleventh of Hebrews, is a splendid testimony 
of its mighty power in all ages of the old dispen- 
sation ; and it ought to be distinctly noticed, that 
little attention is given to the first exercises, which 
secure justification ; but the cases relate chiefly to 
the progress of sanctification. 

Again, we remark, the exercise of faith in God 
is a duty of the law of nature. We cannot even 
conceive of a moral creature being released from 
his obligations of trust and confidence in his 
Maker. No inability, we have seen, cancels moral 
bonds. Sin is never its own excuse ; a man can- 
not take advantage of and profit by his own wrong- 
doing. Rebellion against a righteous government 
can never be right ; and it never can cease to be 
the duty of such a rebel to return to his allegiance. 
No statute of limitation has ever been passed by 
the supreme Legislator, fixing a period in duration 
at and after which the revolted subjects of his em- 
pire shall be released from all obligations to return 
and submit themselves to his righteous government. 
And so we find the duty of believing pressed upon 
all men ; and the form of the gospel call involves 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 89 

this idea; it is mandatory. Believe in God — be- 
lieve on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be 
saved. The command to believe is based in the 
indestructible obligations of law ; and is equally 
binding upon all moral creatures ; the promise ap- 
pended is peculiarly gospel, and emanates from the 
boundless loving-kindness of the Lord. In the 
order of nature, it is dependent on the previous 
command. When the command is obeyed by the 
individual, which never can be, unless grace in re- 
generation changes the heart ; then the pledged 
word of the promiser guarantees to the believer 
the thing promised, and it will be given. 
8 * 



90 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

ON REPENTANCE UNTO LIFE. 

The soul, which is passive in regeneration, is 
ever active afterwards. This life principle, like 
every other, shows itself by its activity. In the 
fiducial trust in God it is active, and this continues 
through life. In turning from sin to holiness — 
from the service of Satan to that of the living God, 
it is active. Nor can any intelligent creature, 
that has turned away in rebellion against its Crea- 
tor, ever annul the obligation to return. Lost 
men, and fallen angels, are equally under the au- 
thority of the God who made them ; and are equally 
bound to return to allegiance. As we stated 
above — the idea, that their indisposition and 
inability makes them independent of the Divine 
government, is not to be tolerated ; for it subverts 
everything like morality, and makes sin its own 
justification. If, therefore, repentance is a turn- 
ing from sin to holiness — from rebellion to submis- 
sion, it is a duty of the moral law, and can never 
be abrogated. Accordingly we find the Scriptures 
everywhere enforcing it as a command. Turn you 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 91 

— let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighte- 
ous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the 
Lord — Repent, and believe the gospel — " Repent, 
and turn yourselves from all your transgressions." 
It is mandatory. 

But, as we have seen, this duty has become, 
through our own wickedness, impossible : and 
therefore, if we ever perform it, grace must be 
given. Thus, " Repentance unto life is a saving 
grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the 
Spirit and word of God." For this end Peter tells 
us, " Him hath God exalted with his right hand, 
to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repent- 
ance to Israel and forgiveness of sins:" Acts v. 31. 
And xi. 18: " Then hath God also to the Gentiles 
granted repentance unto life." The duty of re- 
pentance becomes practicable, when the grace is 
bestowed ; that is, when the man is born again. 

This grace, however, has its counterfeit, as the 
expression, " repentance unto life" seems to inti- 
mate : there is a repentance not unto life. If a 
man, under the operation of terror, of conscience, 
break off his sins, and reform his merely outward 
conduct, and manifest sorrow, and express regret ; 
this is spurious. It is a mere ebullition of selfish- 
ness — and a legal repentance : wherein the man 
does not in reality turn from sin, with loathing, 
abhorrence, and hatred of it, unto God, with love 
and delight in holiness. Thus, the criminal at the 
gallows repents ; he laments the sad consequences 



92 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

of his crime ; yet could he escape the punishment, 
he would continue his sinful course. 

This suggests an important distinction, as ne- 
cessary in explanation of these kinds of repentance ; 
viz. — the turning from sin to God is one thing ; 
and the emotions which accompany it, are another. 
The former has its starting point in the convictions 
of the intelligence, of which we have spoken as 
resulting from the enlightening influences of the 
Holy Spirit. Not only the effects of sin as bring- 
ing condemnation upon the soul ; but also its moral 
aspects, as hateful in the sight of God and pollut- 
ing to the mind and heart, press as a heavy burden 
upon the conscience. A result of this pressure is 
a painful apprehension of Divine wrath, comming- 
ling with sorrowful feelings, with loathing and re- 
vulsion of soul. Now all these feelings, but in 
infinitely diverse degrees, are dependent on the 
mental movements. They are not themselves re- 
pentance, or the turning of the mind; but ac- 
companiments, less or more intimately associated 
with the grand movement whereby the soul turns 
to God. 

" Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but 
that ye sorrowed to repentance : for ye were made 
sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive 
damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh 
repentance to salvation not to be repented of : but 
the sorrow of the world worketh death:" 2 Cor. 
vii. 9, 10. Here we have a good illustration of 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 93 

the prophet's remark — " They shall look upon me, 
whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for 
him:" Zech.xii. 10. It is when the soul contemplates 
the sufferings of Christ, as the consequent of its own 
sins, that strong feelings overpower it, and sadness 
and sorrow overwhelm it. The sorrows of saving 
repentance spring from faith's view of the bleed- 
ing cross. And this shows the relation which faith 
and repentance sustain to each other : the former 
is the necessary antecedent ; for he looks upon him, 
that is, believes his sufferings were brought about 
by our sins. " He that cometh to God" — that is, 
that turneth from sin to God, "must believe that 
he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that 
diligently seek him:" Heb. xi. 6. So, repentance 
unto life is the necessary consequent of saving 
faith ; in the very act of turning, faith is in exercise. 
And farther, this is the first exercise of the grace 
of faith. As soon as it is implanted in the soul by 
the regenerating power of the Spirit, and the eye 
of faith perceives and appropriates the promises of 
the gospel, the whole soul turns to God. 

It is moreover observable here, that the apostle 
seems to make the godly sorrow — sorrow toward 
God, antecedent to and productive of repentance. 
This emotional state of mind is not only distin- 
guishable from the mental, as a consequent, but as 
an antecedent and cause — it worketh repentance. 
On the other hand, the sorrow of the world — sor- 
row that arises from selfish and worldly apprehen- 



94 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

sions of danger and loss, has an efficiency, at 
least an instrumentality, for ruin — it worketh death. 

Again, repentance is original and initial, or re- 
current and oft repeated. By the former is meant 
the first movement after the soul is born of God 
and the principle of faith implanted therein. It is 
over this mainly that there is joy in heaven ; and 
this it is that is usually understood and referred 
to in common p.arlance. But now it is obvious, 
that the latter is the thing that most abounds ; is 
of daily recurrence ; and constitutes a large propor- 
tion of the practical duties of the Christian life. 
As long as Christian men fall into sin — and this 
will be as long as they are in this world — they will 
be called upon, yea, and forced, sooner or later, to 
repent. The case of the Corinthians above cited 
illustrates this : after their initial repentance, 
many of them grievously offended, and being re- 
proved severely, were brought up in the face of 
this duty. So we all fail and come short every 
day ; and every day are called upon to return ; and 
in obeying these calls we find the comfort of our 
souls. 

For, again, repentance is a condition of pardon. 
By this, however, we do not mean a meritorious 
basis or foundation to be laid by the sinner, upon 
which he may claim, as a matter of right, the for- 
giveness of his sin. The basis of all pardon is 
laid in the atonement, or satisfaction rendered to 
Divine justice, by our Redeemer's sufferings and 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 95 

death ; on the ground of which, he has a right to 
claim his people's exemption from the punishment 
of their sins. To them, therefore, such exemption 
is pardon and a gratuity ; whilst to him, as their 
surety, it is pure justice. This is the basis and 
the legal ground of his intercession, for which, 
"him the Father heareth always." By condition, 
therefore, is meant simply a required antecedent 
— that state of mind and feeling must exist, before 
the pardon comes and the evidence of it can be 
given to the soul. But, as we have shown, this it- 
self is a gracious state, brought about by the word 
and Spirit of God ; and, of course, to the utter ex- 
clusion of human merit. In this restricted sense, 
regeneration itself, and faith, and initial repent- 
ance, as well as repentance recurrent, are condi- 
tions of pardon ; and indeed, of the entire salva- 
tion of the gospel. The conditional graces are be- 
stowed gratuitously, in order that the unconditional 
glory may be consistent with the justice and holi- 
ness of God the giver. 

This state of penitential feeling, moreover, is a 
necessary condition on our part. Without passing 
into it, pardon would be an unintelligible affair, and 
unproductive of conscious felicity. But when we 
look upon Him, whom by our sins we have wounded 
afresh in the house of his friends, we mourn for 
him and drop those tears of affection which he will 
transmute into jewels for the crown of our glory. 
We see applied anew to our souls, the blood of 



96 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

sprinkling ; and feel that our sins are all blotted 
out, and the light of our Father's countenance 
shines with renewed radiance upon our souls, then 
all is reconciliation, peace, and joy. But such 
felicity is utterly impossible to a soul hardened in 
impenitence and that refuses to confess its sins be- 
fore God. On the contrary, "If we confess our 
sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, 
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness :" 1 John 
i. 9. Such also was the experience of the Psalmist, 
" When I kept silence my bones waxed old through 
my roaring all the day long. * * * I ac- 
knowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity 
have I not hid. I said, I will confess my trans- 
gressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the ini- 
quity of my sin. * * * Thou shalt compass 
me about with songs of deliverance .:" Ps. xxxii. 
Thus penitential sorrow is a duty, a means of re- 
storing happiness, and an important branch of 
sanctification. 

Genuine repentance, as it is a necessary conse- 
quence and therefore an evidence of regeneration, 
has, as its necessary sequence, holy living, which 
also is an evidence of a change of heart. This, 
however, requires time. The tree must grow be- 
fore it can bear fruit. It is not like the first trees 
in creation, when " the Lord God made the earth 
and the heavens, and every plant of the field be- 
fore it was in the earth, and every herb of the field 
before it grew." This tree of righteousness springs 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 97 

from the seed of God, develops itself by its own 
internal activity, then produces its proper fruits, 
to the praise and glory of the great Husbandman. 
This fruit-bearing characteristic is all-important as 
an evidence of regeneration — deferred from chap. 
xi. By their fruits ye shall know them. When 
time and opportunity have been adequately af- 
forded, and no fruit follows — or if the vine bears 
only the grapes of Sodom and the clusters of Go- 
morrah, it is impossible to believe the tree or the 
vine to be wholly a right seed — a tree of the 
Lord's own planting. In the face of this negation, 
all other evidences shrink away, and are utterly 
contemned. If the stream is wholly corrupt, no 
intelligent mind can believe the fountain to be 
pure. The world, the demon spirits, the man him- 
self, can't believe that he is a renewed man — re- 
generated — born of God ; whilst he continues, as 
heretofore, to lead an unholy life — " foolish, diso- 
bedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and plea- 
sures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hat- 
ing one another." Be ye holy, for I am holy. 



98 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 



CHAPTER XV. 

SANCTIFICATION COMPARED WITH JUSTIFICATION. 

ALTHOUGH we have not yet before us all the 

parts of that process, by which man is restored to 
holiness and happiness, the discussion of this com- 
parison may be as profitably introduced here, as at 
a later period. These two are quite distinct, but 
intimately related : and it is not practicable, as the 
reader may have already observed, to keep them 
altogether from commixture. Let us as a means 
of this, however, briefly contrast the leading points 
of difference. 

1. S&nctification is a process — a work consisting 
of an indefinite number of operations, instruments 
and agencies — vet has it but one efficient Agent. 

Justification is an act, done at once and incapa- 
ble of successive steps. No person can be half 
justified. The act is either performed, or not per- 
formed. Various duties may devolve upon a judge, 
as he labours through law and evidence towards a 
decision : just as various instrumentalities prepare 
for the act of regeneration, whilst itself is one 
and indivisible : but the decision in favour is one 
act. 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 99 

2. The terms, though of exactly similar con- 
struction, are yet different in their technical mean- 
ing. Sanctification and justification are both Latin 
words ; the former generally means making holy, 
the latter making just. But technically, the latter 
means, declaring just, whilst the former is used in 
its generic sense. Consequently, 

3. Sanctification regards moral character and 
spiritual qualities ; justification refers to legal re- 
lations. How does a man stand when viewed by 
the eye of the pure moralist, the holy angels, or 
the holy God ; is the question there. How does he 
stand in the eye of rigid law — is he guilty, that is, 
liable to punishment ; or is he innocent, and as the 
law requires ? is the question here. Sanctification 
alters a man's personal qualities. He does not re- 
main the same after that he was before. The very 
essence of the matter is a radical change for the 
better, in every moral element. Justification pro- 
duces no change. When he is pronounced just, 
he is the same as before sentence passed in his 
favour ; or, on the contrary, (as the terms help to 
illustrate each other) condemnation, which is the 
opposite, does not infuse moral turpitude into a 
man. He is no more corrupt, after the sentence 
passed against him, than before ; it merely declares 
a change of legal relations ; morally, the person is 
unchanged. 

4. The two differ as to their evidences. Sancti- 
fication, as already shown, admits different degrees 



100 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

in its process, and also in the evidences ; which are 
also in kind different from the other. They spring 
from experience and observation, and are therefore 
reached by an inductive process. But the evi- 
dences of justification are, like the thing itself, re- 
ceived by faith. This grace appropriates Christ's 
atonement and his righteousness to the person in 
whom it dwells, and he is thereby made just in the 
eye of the law ; but the evidence of the fact de- 
pends upon the grace of faith, which grace falls 
within the sphere of sanctification by the Spirit ; 
and thus the evidence of the one is largely de- 
pendent upon the operations of the other. That a 
man is justified, he can scarcely, perhaps not at 
all, know, but through his partial sanctification. 
By their fruits ye shall know them. 

5. More particularly should we notice, that jus- 
tification is, through the righteousness of Christ, 
imputed ; but sanctification is by righteousness or 
rectitude inwrought. The confounding of this dis- 
tinction gives us the opus oPeratum of the Roman- 
ists ; one of the radical errors, by which they cor- 
rupt the fundamental doctrine of the Bible and 
substitute self-righteousness in the room of salva- 
tion by free grace. 

6. In regard to legal merit, if I may so call it, 
justification has the superiority and the priority 
over sanctification. The basis or ground-work of 
justification ; viz., the obedience and death of 
Christ, is the meritorious and procuring cause of 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 101 

the mission of the Holy Spirit; and, by conse- 
quence of the whole work of sanctification ; even 
of that operation of the Spirit, by which the faith 
that justifies is inwrought in the soul. "It is ex- 
pedient for you that I go away ; for if I go not 
away, the Comforter will not come unto you ; but 
if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when 
he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and 
of righteousness, and of judgment," &c. John xvi. 
7, 8. This same truth is beautifully set forth in 
the tabernacle service established at Sinai. The 
sacrifice for the congregation, on the great day of 
atonement, was slain without, and a portion of the 
blood was carried into the most holy place, and 
sprinkled upon the ark of the testimony, to make 
reconciliation for the sins of the people. This, 
Paul assures us, represented Christ himself enter- 
ing, "not into the holy places made with hands, 
which are the figures of the true, but into heaven 
itself, now to appear in the presence of God for 
us:" Heb. ix. 24. On the perfection of his sa- 
crifice the efficacy of his advocacy depends : and 
thus the atonement secures the mission of the 
Spirit and the sanctification of the whole redeemed 
church. No wonder the holy apostle made so much 
of it, as to constitute or affirm its position as the 
central truth of the system — " For I determined 
not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ 
and him crucified:" 1 Cor. ii. 2. 
9* 



102 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE ORDER OF THE GRACES. 

Chronology is not absolutely excluded from 
this chapter ; yet must it have no controlling influ- 
ence. Mental states are often so nearly co-exist- 
ent, as to baffle all attempts at discrimination and 
collocation in order of time. We must, therefore, 
rather look to the order of suggestion in our 
thoughts — the modes or train in which they most 
naturally occur to us. If a writer closely and 
successfully note this in his own mind and succeed 
in passing it over to his paper, he will very proba- 
bly present them in the way best adapted to enable 
his readers to conceive and retain them ; and this, 
because the laws of succession in thoughts are few 
and simple, and common to men. 

The reader will remember, that we have excluded 
conviction of sin from the category of the graces ; 
and that, simply because conviction per se is not a 
grace or a blessing. We think, moreover, that to 
speak of it so as to produce, or leave in the mind, 
the vague notion of its being a blessing, exposes 
to the danger of mistaking conviction for conver- 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATIOtf. 103 

sion ; false confidence for true faith ; and, thereby 
landing the soul in the snares and toils of a dan- 
gerous carnal security. 

1. The first of the graces is regeneration. 
When the soul is born of God, it is a new creature. 
The principle of a holy life is now present. Sanc- 
tification is begun. No holy principle or holy ac- 
tion prior to this belongs to it. This is the seed 
of God, which being within a man, "he cannot sin, 
(as a habit, that is,) for his seed remaineth in him; 
and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." 
1 John iii. 9. There is, indeed, a slight impro- 
priety, as before intimated, in calling this a grace, 
for it is not improvable, as contradistinguished 
from other branches of sanctification. It does not 
grow, or advance from one degree to another, but 
is perfected at once. But, as the production of 
this change from death unto life is a gratuitous 
and gracious exercise of the Divine energy, it will 
be productive of no evil, that I can think of, to 
place regeneration at the head of the graces. 

2. Next, not in time, and scarcely in the order 
of our conceptions ; but, as it were, coexistent with 
the first, is faith — the restored principle of holy 
confidence in God ; which, whenever the Divine 
testimony is presented, sets to its seal that God is 
true. This grace, implanted in the soul, comes 
into exercise, the first after it is made alive spi- 
ritually. Perhaps I have not, with sufficient ex- 
plicitness, distinguished between the fixed princi- 



104 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

pie or abiding law of belief, and the acts of believ- 
ing. The former is what I mean by the grace of 
faith and is the fruit of the renewing Spirit ; the 
latter are acts of the mind itself and the works of 
the new man. This distinction is important, in 
order to avoid foisting in the act of believing into 
the position, in justification, of Christ's righteous- 
ness. Those who do this take faith subjectively, 
which is a mistake ; whereas, when faith is counted 
for righteousness, it is correctly taken objectively. 
Not the act of believing, but the object on which that 
act terminates, is accounted for righteousness. The 
former makes salvation depend upon the sinner's act; 
the latter builds it upon the Saviour's merits. The 
one is by works ; the other by grace. 

3. Saving repentance admits a chronological 
order. It is a sequence of faith both in time and 
in the order of our conceptions. The turning of 
the mind involves an activity of faith ; and the 
measure of strength in the feelings is graduated 
by the depth of the soul's former iniquities, collated 
with the height of present spiritual illumination. 

4. Love is the crowning grace. " Beloved, let 
us love one another : for love is of God ; and every 
one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 
He that loveth not, knoweth not God ; for God is 
love." " Love worketh no ill to his neighbour, 
therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." — " All 
the law is fulfilled in one word, Thou shalt love thy 
neighbour as thyself." Sometimes love to God is 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 105 

referred to as evidence and reason for love to the 
brethren : sometimes love to the brethren, as proof 
of love to God, and, of course, of a change of heart. 
The reason is obvious, the thing — the principle of 
communicative goodness, is the same, whether the 
object upon which it operates be God himself or 
the children of his love : and in both cases its 
essential activity goes forth alone with the com- 
mencement of its being, in the soul's regeneration. 
We cannot mark time here : we cannot say the 
soul after it has believed, and again, after it has 
repented, comes under the law of love. We can- 
not conceive a man to be regenerate, a true be- 
liever, a sincere penitent, and yet, for a time, de- 
void of love. This heaven-born principle belongs 
essentially to the new man ; and, without it, no one 
can have evidence of his renovated state. Could 
it lie dormant in the soul, perfectly inactive, it 
seems impossible the man should know of its exist- 
ence. But as it is vitally active, not in word only 
nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth, it cannot 
lie hid, but must reveal itself. 



106 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

PROGRESSIVE NATURE OF SANCTIFICATION. 

Wherever there is life, there is action. And 
wherever there is a life-principle, connected with a 
material organism, there must be motion. What 
life is, in either of these spheres, philosophy has 
struggled hitherto in vain to determine. From its 
activities we learn the existence of life : and from 
the peculiar form of its activities, we come to a 
knowledge of the particular kind of life ; whether 
vegetable, or animal, connected with material sub- 
stance : or, within the sphere of immaterial sub- 
stances, whether intellectual or rational ; moral or 
spiritual. Now there seems to be one characteristic 
common to all life; viz. that its legitimate activities 
secure and result in its increase and enlargement. 
Self-aggrandizement is its universal law. Right 
action — action suitable — accordant with the nature 
of the life itself, results in its increase. Vital 
powers are not decreased, but increased by their 
own proper activities. This law seems to be with- 
out any limit, except within the region of material 
organism. The nature of matter is such, that re- 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 107 

pulsion and dissolution of its organic forms, seems 
to be essentially a part of it. Whether the spi- 
ritual or psychical body of which Paul speaks, is 
merely the deliverance of the organic matter of 
the body, from this repellent and destructive power, 
does not appear. But it is obvious, that vegetables 
and animals have a limit set to advancement by 
their own activities. Otherwise, the onward move- 
ment of life seems to be its universal law. 

We have here the starting point of the law of pro- 
gress, which runs through the works of God. Let 
us briefly look into its operation within the depart- 
ments of life respectively; beginning with the lowest 
class. 

1. The vegetable kingdom is a vast universe. Its 
denizens are to us innumerable : even their classi- 
fication has been but partially accomplished ; 
although the work has occupied mighty intellects 
from Solomon's to our day. And all these classes, 
from the microscopic plant, to the cedar of Cali- 
fornia ; and all the individuals of all the classes, 
have completed their organization under the action 
of their life ; advancing progressively, for so many 
minutes, or for so many thousand years. Each one 
has acted out the life which God gave it ; performed 
its functions ; reached its limit ; given up its life, 
and returned its material substance to the dust 
whence it sprang. Now each of these myriads of 
millions illustrates the principle before us. So the 
product of the farm. " For the earth bringeth forth 



108 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

fruit of herself ; first the blade, then the ear, after 
that the full corn in the ear." The parable of the 
mustard seed illustrates the growing nature of the 
kingdom of God, by that development and enlarge- 
ment which results from the activity of the in- 
herent life. Stop this inner activity, and the plant 
or the cedar dies. Drive its energies to action be- 
yond their natural movement, and you force its 
premature destruction. 

2. Equally simple, yet equally incomprehensible, 
as to the mode of their action, and equally obvious 
are the facts within the sphere of animal life. 
Feeble are its pulsations in the insect that flutters 
in the sunbeam ; powerful are the throes of even its 
earliest movements in the monsters of the deep, 
the forest, or the eagle's airy home. But still they 
are onward and upward : and each reaches, in due 
time, if unmolested, that measure of perfection 
assigned to it by its Maker. The unfledged nestling, 
with naked body and closed eyes, receives its 
meat from God, through the instinctive laws of its 
own nature ; exerts the feeble powers it has, which 
every day increase. His bones knit, his muscle and 
sinew harden and toughen ; his feathers spread over 
him, his wings bear him a little beyond his eyrie ; 
anon, he becomes " a great eagle, with great wings, 
he comes to Lebanon and takes the highest branch 
of the cedar " — he descends with fiery eye and with 
terrible swoop from the summit of Chimborazo, and 
bears his prey aloft. 



A TREATISE OX SANCTIFICATION. 109 

3. Passing the bounds of the material world and 
entering that of immaterial substances, we find the 
same rule of advancing life. The region of spirits 
and their attributes are not so easily cognizable. 
Still we can know something of the laws of mental 
movement ; and we may view them under four as- 
pects — or points of observation ; viz., The intelli- 
gence, the reason, the moral faculty, and the spi- 
ritual. 

(1.) The intellectual powers — the mind or soul, 
viewed as the recipient of knowledge, begins low 
and ascends to higher regions. How feeble the in- 
fantile mind ! Has the babe intelligence ? Or is 
it a mere animal, or a mere vegetable, capable of 
physical action and growth thereby, like a cabbage 
plant ? 

Oh with what intense interest such questions come 
home to the mother's bosom, as she dandles the 
feeble mortal on the parent knee ! And, oh with 
what feelings her heart swells and her bosom 
heaves, as she discovers that it sees — oh, yes, it is 
not born blind — this inlet of knowledge has been 
bestowed by the all-seeing One. Anon, it startles 
at the sudden jar of the shutting door. Then it 
hears, too ! thanks to the Hearer of prayer, my 
babe has another most important inlet of know- 
ledge. A little while, and a little farther expansion 
and development reveals another power till re- 
cently dormant. Yes ! oh, yes, in that beautiful 
eye kindles up the indubitable mark of intelli- 
10 



110 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

gence ; it perceives — it recognizes, it knows me. 
Thanks to the All-wise, my babe is not an idiot. 
And thus, as the physical development fits the body 
for use, as the machinery with which the mind 
works, the capacity for acquiring knowledge en- 
larges. Every onward movement becomes the 
basis of still another and greater advance. 

(2.) But let us connect with this the reason. 
As the mind acquires knowledge, the material for 
the reasoning faculties increases as the necessity 
for its use. How the logical faculty expands from 
the faintest exercises of the comparing power, to 
the sublimest demonstrations of the astronomer, 
let the educator testify. He has marked a thou- 
sand times, the early essays of the untrained logi- 
cian ; how obscure ; how defective and unsatisfac- 
tory ! But every little gain in knowledge, by in- 
ferring truths unknown from those before in pos- 
session, becomes a new basis of advance ; until at 
last the infant becomes a giant and grapples with 
the sublimest demonstrations. Now it is important 
to remark, that no known limit has been reached, 
to this intellectual development. It is to us prac- 
tically interminable. True, our bodily organism, 
like every other material thing, becomes exhausted 
and worn out ; but this by no means proves a 
limit to knowledge or the progress of the powers 
that extend it. The breaking of a bolt or of an 
axletree does not at all prove that the expansive 
power of steam has reached its utmost limit. The 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. Ill 

failing of the mental powers in old men, no more 
than insanity or idiocy proves a limit to the mind's 
capacity for enlargement. All these phenomena 
are resolvable into physical infirmity. Some dis- 
organization of the bodily frame has occurred, so 
that the mind is clogged and prevented from farther 
progress. 

But now, seeing it is the actual law of the intel- 
lect and the reason, to move onward and increase 
in power, as long as we are acquainted with them 
here, the question forces itself upon us, Does this 
law continue beyond the grave ? When these 
trammels of clay, that clog our mental movements, 
drop off, will our minds cease from their legitimate 
activity and their growth thereby ? Or will they 
spring forward, with a renewed, a strong, immortal 
vigour, hitherto unknown ? Can it be, that this 
house of clay is the most suitable abode for the im- 
mortal mind, and the best adapted to secure its 
everlasting expansion ? 

(3.) Ascending into the higher region of morals, 
we find ourselves still within the range of progres- 
sive advancement. The moral sense itself is under 
this law. The intellectual part, so to speak, of 
conscience ; that is, its discerning power, is obvi- 
ously susceptible of great improvement. If a man 
exercise himself upon questions of moral rectitude 
— narrowly inspecting his own and other men's 
conduct, by the light of moral law, he cannot fail 
of whetting up his faculties to a clearer discrimi- 



112 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

nation between right and wrong ; and thereby fit- 
ting himself for an easier solution of such ques- 
tions for the future. On the contrary, a non-user 
— a total neglect to exercise conscience in this 
manner, leaves it in all its native feebleness ; so 
that he remains incapable of forming opinions of 
moral acts, and sinks himself toward the rank and 
condition of a mere animal. 

Necessarily such cultivation or neglect must af- 
fect the judging power of conscience. Because, 
judging is the comparing of ideas, and marking 
their agreement or difference ; and its accuracy 
will depend upon the correctness of the mind's 
perceptions of those ideas. The things compared 
in our processes of moral judgment are the moral 
law on the one hand, and the conduct of moral 
agents on the other. The apostle, in 1 John iii. 20, 
tells us "if our heart" — that is, conscience — 
"condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and 
knoweth all things." Our conscience, with the 
imperfect knowledge we now have, condemns us ; 
much more will God's perfect knowledge insure a 
more severe condemnation. 

The impulsive power of conscience is increased 
by our careful acquiescence in its decisions, and 
injured by disregard of its admonitions. Whenever 
the discriminating and judging activities of the 
moral sense are passed, its impulsive power is put 
forth : it commands us to do the right and to avoid 
the wrong. If we are careful in this matter, our 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 113 

constant and prompt compliance with the dictates 
and advice of this kind friend will secure his con- 
tinued and increasing friendship : but woe to him 
who contemns his voice and rejects his counsel. 
We are familiar with the hardening process de- 
scribed by Paul, as a searing with a hot iron. 1 Tim. 
iv. 2: " Speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their 
conscience seared with a hot iron." How forcibly 
this expresses the reverse of our doctrine ! When 
reverse operations require, the impulsive power 
is almost abrogated : whereas, falling in with its 
decisions and exercising our minds in following up 
its counsels, there is a constant increase of its 
power secured and a higher moral stand sus- 
tained. 

The same remarks are .true with regard to the 
rewarding and punishing power of the moral sense. 
How rich the consolations of the former ; and how 
terrible the consequences of neglecting the latter ! 
Yet, if we neglect either or both, we lose much on 
the one hand, and on the other treasure up wrath 
against the day of wrath, when the never dying 
worm begins his everlasting torments. 

. As it is with the moral sense itself, so with the 
moral virtues which call it forth and coalesce with 
its activities ; they increase under legitimate use. 
To illustrate in a single case : The love of truth, 
the requirement of the ninth precept, is undiscov- 
ered in early years. It requires time and great 
attention to generate in the youthful mind the idea 
10 * 



114 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

of truth and the conception of falsehood : but still 
more, to waken the moral sense to the perception 
of its importance and the wrong of its violation. 
Young children lie or tell falsehoods, without show- 
ing any compunction of conscience. But careful 
management, in a few years, forms their minds to 
the right conception, and soon secures the active 
force of the moral sense in its favour. Feeble, 
indeed, and faint in its movements at first, is the 
love of truth : but steadfast adherence to it by all 
around him ; the manifestation of strong disappro- 
bation of lying, by those to whom he looks for pro- 
tection, favour, and kindness, soon strengthen the 
feeling, and it rises to a law of veracity, and ope- 
rates as a controlling influence over the whole man. 
" Surely they are my ^people, children that will 
not lie." And the command is clear, Lie not one 
to another — All liars shall have their part in the 
burning lake. And in Ps. xv., " he that speaketh 
the truth/' is laid down as a preparation for ascend- 
ing into the hill of God. And this habit becomes 
so established by practice, that it is, as it were, im- 
possible for such men to lie. Yet an opposite 
course, even after considerable progress has been 
made, may reverse the whole. Through the power 
of temptation men are led to falsify, and, succeed- 
ing repeatedly in worldly gains by such means, 
the habit presently swallows up and obliterates all 
conscientiousness as to truth-telling, and the man 
is hardened in his iniquity. And thus it is with 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 115 

all the moral habits required by the decalogue. 
Just as it is with our mere physical powers ; they 
are advanced on their way to perfection by their 
legitimate exercise. 

4. Thus we advance one more step in our ascend- 
ing series, and find ourselves in the region of spi- 
ritual life. 

In the close of his second epistle, Peter prescribes 
obedience to this law : " But grow in grace, and in 
the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ." Here is a beautiful allusion to our first 
illustration— the vegetable kingdom. Trees do 
grow : graces do grow. Knowledge too, as already 
seen, has its upward movement. That inimitable al- 
legory in the fifth chapter of Isaiah is based on 
this law : " My well beloved hath a vineyard in a 
very fruitful hill : and he fenced it, and gathered 
out the stones thereof, and planted it with the 
choicest vines," &c. " For the vineyard of the 
Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men 
of Judah his pleasant plant." The vine grows 
from a small cutting, and advances continually to- 
ward perfection. The parable of the mustard 
seed, and that of the leaven, exemplify the same 
principle. So the Christian life is a race and a 
warfare. Ye did run well. Run with patience 
the race that is set before you. Then shall ye 
know, if ye follow on to know the Lord. So we 
hear of babes in Christ, of young men and of old 
men. Paul, in Heb. v., reproves them for their slow 



116 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

advance. Yet " they go on from strength to strength; 
every one of them in Zion appeareth before God." 
" We are changed from glory to glory." So the 
church is a spiritual house, and of course, has its 
foundation, its walls and entire superstructure ; not 
created at once, but by successive steps. " And 
are built upon the foundation of the apostles and 
prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cor- 
ner stone ; in whom all the building fitly framed 
together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord : 
in whom ye also are builded together for a habi- 
tation of God through the Spirit :" Eph. ii. 20-22. 
Let these suffice to show, that the law of progress 
prevails in the domain of the Spirit's work of sanc- 
tification. 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 117 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

INSTRUMENTALITIES BY WHICH THE SPIRIT WORKS 
IN THE PROGRESS OF SANCTIFICATION. 

We have already proposed a distinction, in re- 
gard to holiness, by the epithets negative and posi- 
tive : meaning by negative holiness, the absence of 
pollution — of corruption — of moral turpitude, 
without the presence of positive moral purity : and 
by positive holiness, that presence— purity of 
actual character — the inbeing of right feelings and 
habits of upright action. According to this dis- 
tinction there will be two aspects of the work of 
making men holy : two processes, easily distin- 
guished from each other : the one is the removal 
of corrupt lusts — sinful affections out of the soul : 
the other, the introduction of pure desires, holy 
affections, actual and positive good spiritual quali- 
ties. It is not insisted that these movements are 
separable, either in time or nature. We need not 
attempt even to conceive of a soul being freed 
from all sinful affections, and not yet the abode of 
pure and holy emotions — a mere hull of a house, 
empty, swept and garnished — furnished, though not 



118 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

inhabited. But we think, that both the instru- 
mentalities and the efficiency are different ; though 
intimately related ; and, in a degree, commingled. 
This we shall understand better as we proceed to 
name some of the leading instruments and occa- 
sions of sanctification, as viewed from the negative 
or from the positive side. 

As to the first introduction of holiness into the 
soul, in the matter of regeneration, we have seen, 
in Chapter XI. that the moral law is mainly used, 
but only as an instrument for conviction, expelling 
the strong man, and emptying the house. For the 
production of the new life, the Spirit's own direct 
power is alone efficient. 

But now that the seed of God, the life-germ is 
implanted, it only requires the removal of obstruct- 
ing hindrances, and the presence of water and 
warmth, to ensue its expansion and growth. Be- 
cause this fire and water, this thing symbolized ; 
the Spirit, keeps up the motion and activity of the 
life, and by this, it grows, like the mustard- 
seed. 

1. The truth is a leading instrument. " Sanctify 
them through thy truth; thy word is truth." Let 
us exemplify by reference to the second command- 
ment. Idolatry is a crying sin, and pollutes the 
whole soul, and disqualifies it for holy duties. This 
is checked by the truth in the second precept : the 
habit is condemned ; the ruinous consequences of 
the sin fill the mind with apprehension : conscience 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 119 

rallies, and this lust of the carnal mind is nailed to 
the cross. Negatively the soul is advanced in pu- 
rity. But the effect does not stop in a mere nega- 
tion — the arrest of a corrupt habit — a positive on- 
ward movement also results. The Spirit prompts 
to the duty of holy reverence for God, and the feel- 
ings of the soul, which before went forth after the 
idol, are now T transferred to the proper object of 
religious aw T e and reverence. God is erected in 
place of the idol, and Ephraim cries out, " What 
have I to do any more with idols ?" 

Take also an example from the second table. 
Carnal affections, in violation of the seventh pre- 
cept, have carried aw T ay the heart ; and sexual im- 
purity breaks up the peace of families and commu- 
nities, as almost everywhere in the pagan world. 
The commandment is sent in power by the Spirit. 
" Mortify therefore your members which are upon 
the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate af- 
fection/' &c. "For if ye live after the flesh, ye 
shall die ; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify 
the deeds of the body, ye shall live." The soul is 
made to know that the most secret movement of 
illicit desire is sinful and perilous : then comes the 
negation : the flesh is crucified. But again the 
positive side of sanctification gains. Chastity is 
cherished, and a life of purity is advanced. 

The reader will notice in this twofold operation, 
the distinctive instrumentalities of the truth re- 
spectively, of the law, and of the gospel. To this 



120 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

there is direct reference by the apostle : 2 Cor. iii. 
6, where he says, "The letter killeth, but the 
Sj)irit giveth life." And again, v. 9, he calls it 
" The ministration of condemnation." The effect 
directly of this condemnation of sin in the believer, 
is to remove obstructions to the practice of holiness 
— to break up habits of sinning : and so to open 
the way for positive holiness, in its onward pro- 
gress by the Holy Spirit's work through gospel 
truth ; encouraging, persuading, and enabling the 
soul to practise holiness in the fear of God. 

2. Another instrumentality is brought to view 
in the above citation, viz, the living ministry of 
the word. " Ye are our epistle, written in your 
hearts. * * * written, not with ink, but with 
the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, 
but in fleshly tables of the heart. And such trust 
have we through Christ to God-ward. Not that 
we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as 
of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God: who 
also hath made us able ministers of the New Testa- 
ment." — Here again we see that the ministry, 
(important as are the living teachers of the word 
and exemplifiers of progressive sanctification in 
their own persons) are nevertheless, only instru- 
ments : the Holy Ghost is the Sanctifier. More- 
over, as above, the removal of corrupt affections is 
one thing ; and the implantation of positive holi- 
ness is another. 

Similar are the two forms presented in 1 Peter 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 121 

ii. 11, 12 : " Dearly beloved, I beseech you', as 
strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, 
which war against the soul ; having your conversa- 
tion honest among the Gentiles : that whereas they 
speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your 
good works, which they shall behold, glorify God 
in the day of visitation." Negation — refusal to 
gratify, tends to root out positive corruption : and 
the holy conduct of the saints operates, through 
the Spirit, positive influence in drawing sinners in- 
to the way of holiness. 

3. Sufferings, under the chastising hand of a Fa- 
ther, tend in the same direction. The fruit of af- 
fliction is to take away sin. " But who may abide 
the day of his coming ? and who shall stand when 
he appeareth ? for he is like a refiner's fire, and 
like fuller's soap. And he shall sit as a refiner and 
purifier of silver : and he shall purify the sons of 
Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they 
may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteous- 
ness :" Mai. iii. 2, 3. " I have chosen thee in the 
furnace of affliction." 

This method of purifying the church is promi- 
nent throughout her history. " Before I was af- 
flicted I went astray, but now have I kept thy 
word:" Psalm cxix. 67. Ephraim bemoaned him- 
self thus; " Thou hast chastised me, and I. was 
chastised. * * * Surely after that I was 

turned, I repented:" Jer. xxxi. 18: but our Fa- 
ther chastiseth " for our profit, that we might be 
11 



122 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening 
for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; 
nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable 
fruit of righteousness unto them which are exer- 
cised thereby:" Heb. xii. 10, 11. Plainly, there 
is nothing in mere suffering calculated to generate 
kindly feeling toward the person who inflicts it ; 
but the reverse. The executioner is an odious 
character. The natural and immediate effect of 
suffering, is grievous, and renders the rod an 
object of dread. But the association of the pain 
with the offence that brings on the stroke, calls in- 
to action the law of self-love, and thus restrains 
from its repetition: but it does not generate holy 
affection : it only operates negatively. It requires 
another agency and influence to begin or to increase 
holy action in the soul. The peaceable fruit of 
righteousness is the effect of another cause : not 
of the pain ; but of the exercise of a spiritual influ- 
ence, shedding forth love in the heart. So it is 
even with an earthly parent's chastisement: unless 
the child is enabled to see love wielding the rod, 
no beneficial consequence will follow; but hardness, 
obstinacy, and hate rather. 

Under this general head of afflictions, as a 
means of sanctification in both kinds, are a multi- 
tude of things, which it were impossible to detail. 
The whole book of Job is an exemplification. De- 
struction of property ; death of friends ; unreason- 
ableness of counsellors and advisers : alienation of 






A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 123 

affection in those we love ; personal torment under 
disease and infirmity, &c. ; all social evils, such as 
epidemic, pestilence, war, and famine ; and revo- 
lutions affecting the whole community and so in- 
volving the church ; but, above all, persecution. 
This last is proverbially referred to as a purifier. 
The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church ; 
and, indeed, her entire history consists largely of 
details of sorrows and calamities brought upon her 
professedly for this end, that she may be prostrated 
before the Lord, and constrained in dust and ashes 
to confess and forsake her sins. 

How these things operate, it is not difficult to 
perceive. In the case of riches, for example : if 
the Christian is in danger of trusting in them, to 
the neglect of God and his own soul ; the Lord, in 
mercy, gives them wings and they fly away as an 
eagle towards heaven ; and draw his thoughts in 
that direction. In the case of dear friends coming 
in between the soul and God. He in mercy takes 
away the wife, the husband, the son, the daughter, 
that the idol being removed, God himself may be 
the only object of supreme regard. Thus, the 
flesh is crucified, with its lusts and corruptions ; 
hinderances to the onward movement in holiness are 
removed ; and the gracious power of the Spirit 
carries forward the work from glory to glory. 

4. The sacraments, as well as the word, are in- 
struments of growth. Baptism, wherein water is 
poured as the symbol of the Spirit, sets forth his 



124 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

purifying influence. Only, however, by reflective 
activities of the mind, is it to himself and in his 
own case, an instrument of his own purification. 
The very thing set forth by it, is "the washing of 
regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost :" 
Tit. iii. 5. So that it is not to the subject a means, 
but as he reflects upon it and keeps up the idea of 
washing — of spiritual purification ; and thus the 
exhibition of it becomes a standing visible admoni- 
tion of the necessity of holiness and of the only 
agency of its production. Every time the eye be- 
holds the water applied in baptism, the beholder is 
warned of his need of a gracious power to change 
his heart. Every time he calls up and meditates 
on its spiritual meaning, he is invited to come and 
be cleansed ; and that whether it be the first act 
in the new creation of the soul; or subsequent 
movements of the same power in the progress of 
holiness. 

Moreover, in the case of the baptized, as a seal 
of the covenant, it is a standing memorial of their 
obligations to lead a holy life, to the glory of God 
and their own everlasting welfare; and of the 
sealed promise on the part of God, to minister the 
spiritual graces necessary to meet these covenant 
obligations. 

But it is the sacred supper, that chiefly symbol- 
izes the means of growth in holiness. Herein the 
exhibition of bread and wine separately, holds up 
the cross before our eyes. The only sacrifice, 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 125 

that can take away sin, as to its guilt, and secure 
the ultimate removal also of its pollution, is kept 
before us, and our faith is constrained to dwell upon 
it, and appropriate it to ourselves ; before whose 
eyes Jesus Christ is evidently set forth crucified. 
As we appropriate the bread and the wine, the 
symbols of his body and blood, we say, each for 
himself, " He loved me and gave himself for me." 
When we do this in remembrance of him, we bring 
him up vividly before our own minds. We hear 
his agonizing prayer — the only prayer of his, to 
which, in appearance, the Father turned a deaf ear 
— " Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from 
me," — his dying shriek pierces our hearts, and as 
we look upon him, we mourn for him and weep 
over those sins that pierced the Lord of glory. 
We feel that he is present according to his pro- 
mise. His matchless — wondrous love swells in our 
bosom, and we know it is his Spirit that kindles up 
afresh this flame that can never die. At the ban- 
quet of wine, we open our hearts and make large 
requests for renewing grace ; seal anew the cove- 
nant of life, and pledge our souls and all that is 
within us, that, in all coming time, and by his 
grace, in all eternity, we will be his. Thus we are 
carried back to the very foundation of our hope ; 
for here is the work which secures the mission of 
the Spirit, and he by this strengthens our faith and 
refreshes our souls, and invigorates every power 
for renewed activity and energy. 
11 * 



126 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION, 



CHAPTER XIX. 

TEMPTATION AND PRAYER — MEANS OF GROWTH. 

These cannot well be classed with the mere in- 
struments used by the Spirit ; and yet they are im- 
portant means which he does use or overrule for 
the purification of his church. I put temptation 
before, for the reason, that prayer is a means of 
deliverance. " Watch and pray that ye enter not 
into temptation." " Count it all joy when ye fall 
into divers temptations." Hence it is evident, 
that the word is used in an evil sense ; and also in 
a good sense. Temptation is an evil to be guarded 
against ; it is a good to be rejoiced over. We in- 
fer that, by itself, temptation is indifferent — neither 
good nor bad necessarily ; but depending for its 
character upon the circumstances of each case ; and 
especially on the tendency and design of the temp- 
ter. The general meaning is trial — putting a per- 
son to some test, which will reveal his temper, dis- 
position, inclination. It implies uncertainty — 
doubt as to whether the person is as he professes 
or appears to be. The instances, however, of its 
application in a good sense are few; Scripture 



A TREATISE OX SANCTIFICATION. 127 

usage is chiefly in an ill sense. Of the former we 
have, Gen. xxii. 1, " God did tempt Abraham ;" 
and Jas. i. 2, cited above ; and there is not a third ; 
so that it may be assumed, that temptation in 
Scripture means an effort to draw aside from the 
path of duty by placing motives to evil before the 
mind. Thus the Israelites tempted God ; Satan 
tempted our Saviour in the wilderness, by endeav- 
ouring to induce him to use unlawful means for 
personal aggrandizement. " Let no man say when 
he is tempted, I am tempted of God ; for God can- 
not be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any 
man." He tempted Abraham, it is true, but not 
for the purpose and design of inducing him to act 
sinfully. It was in order to draw forth and mani- 
fest his faithfulness and integrity. And the other 
case calls for all joy, not because of the " divers 
temptations" in themselves, but rather for the re- 
sults when believers have resisted them. In this 
light it is, that temptation is used by the Spirit as 
a means and occasion for advancing the soul in 
holiness. " For there hath no temptation taken you 
— (says Paul to the Corinthians, i. 10, 13 — ) but 
such as is common to man ; but God is faithful, 
who will not suffer you to be tempted above that 
ye are able ; but will with the temptation also 
make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear 
it." Hence the direction in prayer — " Lead us not 
into temptation, but deliver us from evil ;" perhaps 
better "from the evil one." As Christ was de- 



128 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

livered from the tempter, so will he ensure deliver- 
ance to all his people ; and as with himself and 
his friend Abraham, so shall it be with all the 
faithful. Not only shall their adversaries be foiled ; 
but their graces shall shine forth with increased 
brilliancy and glory. Through the furnace of af- 
fliction shall they walk unharmed and shall come 
forth without the smell of fire upon their gar- 
ments. Bound they may be, when they are thrown 
in, but their bonds shall be consumed and they 
shall walk loose, because beside them " the form 
of the fourth is like the Son of God." The lions' 
mouths are shut, because the Angel Redeemer has 
unfolded the glory of his own Divine presence in 
their den, and they can go no farther than he per- 
mits. The Holy Ghost inhabits his temple, there- 
fore the spirits of pollution cannot there dwell. 

" Trials make the promise sweet, 
Trials give new life to prayer ,* 
Trials bring me to his feet, 

Lay me low, and keep me there." 

The storms that rock the sapling, and bow its 
head almost to the earth, send its roots the deeper 
into the soil ; and prepare the mighty oak or the 
majestic cedar to brave the tempests of a thousand 
years. Great temptations triumphed over make 
great Christians. It may be well for a moment to 
ask how temptations may be resisted and good be 
deduced from the evil : and no better lesson can be 
found, than the Master's example and his command 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 129 

by his servant, James iv. 7, " Resist the devil, and 
he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he 
will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye 
sinners ; and purify your hearts, ye double- 
minded." The Holy Spirit within resists the un- 
holy spirit, and keeps him out; and the consequence 
is, the hands are cleansed and the heart is puri- 
fied. 

But there is an instrumentality to be used. "Put 
on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able 
to stand against the wiles of the devil. * * * 
Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with 
truth ; and having on the breastplate of righteous- 
ness : and your feet shod with the preparation of 
the gospel of peace : above all taking the shield 
of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all 
the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet 
of salvation, and the sword of, the Spirit, which is 
the word of God : praying always with all prayer, 
and supplication in the Spirit:" — Eph. vi. 14, &c. 
Most of these implements have been already con- 
sidered. The sword in the Saviour's hands was 
very effective in repelling the arch-fiend : and we 
have therein a strong argument in favour of a 
similar application. By these weapons, wisely 
used, we must gain the victory. 

Prayer, as a religious exercise, " is the offering 
up of our desires to God." — "Deliver us from the 
evil one." Prayer is not a duty peculiar to 
Christians. It is a duty under the law of nature 



130 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

— it is a necessary attribute of dependent rational 
existence. All intelligent beings do pray — do 
send forth their desires — express their wants : some, 
to the true God through Jesus, the Mediator, and 
by the aids of the Holy Spirit: some, as the 
heathen, to false gods — Jupiter, Bacchus, Ashta- 
roth or Venus ; or, as the Romans now, to the 
Virgin Mary, the saints, Peter, Paul, &c. Some 
pray to Fortune, an old Roman goddess, yet ardently 
worshipped. 

Prayer is a means, pointed out by the law of 
nature, as well as by the Scriptures, for obtaining 
a supply of our wants. It is placed here at the 
close of the heavenly panoply, doubtless for the 
reason, that it calls forth those influences which 
give energy and efficiency to all the rest. " Pray- 
ing always with all prayer and supplication in the 
Spirit" — by the Spirit, I prefer. " Likewise the 
Spirit also helpeth our infirmities : for we know not 
what we should pray for as we ought : but the Spirit 
itself maketh intercession for us with groanings 
which cannot be uttered." Rom. viii. 26, &c. 
Some people seem to think themselves capable of 
going beyond the Spirit, by showing that their 
groanings can be uttered. But it appears plain, 
that the inhabiting Spirit goes beyond our very 
thoughts, and procures for us blessings above our 
knowledge : working in us both to will and to do of 
his good pleasure. Pray without ceasing — men 
ought always to pray and not to faint. An habitual 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 131 

feeling of want tends to keep down the pride of 
the heart, and so to mortify the flesh with its lusts 
and corruptions. The new man can no more live 
without praying, than the old carnal man can live 
without breathing. Beautifully has it been said, 
prayer is the breath of the new man. As breathing 
keeps up the life of the body, and is indispensable, 
not only to its growth, but to the continuity of its 
being ; so prayer is indispensable to the being and 
advancement of our spiritual life. Nor need the 
modus operandi give us any trouble. Wherein lies 
the efficacy of prayer ? How doth it expand the 
powers of the renewed heart ? I answer, wherein 
lies the efficacy of natural breath ? How doth the 
heaving of the bosom continue and increase my 
physical energies, and extend my life ? Should 
all men refuse to breathe until they can under- 
stand all these modes of influence, the race 
would soon die out, and the earth be left a des- 
olation. Oh no : man is not omniscient : let 
him not attempt to limit God. If I could know 
nothing at all, of the mode in which prayer is effi- 
cacious, this I do know ; that God commands all 
men everywhere to pray without ceasing. 



132 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 



CHAPTER XX, 

THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT. 

If we live in the Spirit let us also walk in the 
Spirit. This is a result of his inhabitation. He 
dwelleth in us in order that we abound in good 
works. Some of these, connected with external 
instrumentalities, have passed under review: others, 
not a few, are not so connected : but are produced 
by his independent action. These we may now 
consider under the classification furnished in Gal. 
v. 22, 23 : " The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, 
peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 
meekness, temperance." Two of these have already 
been before us, yet we shall, bearing very lightly 
upon those two, make a few remarks upon this 
catalogue of nine topics. 

1. Love is the principle of communicative good- 
ness. It is essentially active, always aiming to do 
good to the person who is the object of it. It is 
the universal principle of moral excellence ; has its 
origin in God ; was lost in the first sin, and is re- 
stored only when the soul is renewed after the 
image of him that created it. 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 133 

2. Joy is an elevation or lifting up of the soul; 
an emotional state of mind, of a very pleasing 
character ; resulting from an apprehension of some 
great good, either in possession or prospect. A 
few instances will illustrate. Matt. xxv. 21 : 
" Well done, thou good and faithful servant — enter 
thou into the joy of thy lord." Luke vi. : " Re- 
joice ye in that day, and leap for joy." Strong 
feeling is here displayed, because of great benefits 
in view, productive of great happiness. The state 
of feeling in heaven, upon the reception of the news 
of sinners repenting on earth, is expressed by this 
word, Luke xv. 7, 10. When the news were re- 
ceived that the Gentiles had embraced the gospel, 
" the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy 
Ghost." Acts xiii. 52. And thus everywhere: joy is 
a strong and glad emotion resulting from the obtain- 
ing of some great benefit. This benefit is the glo- 
rious hope of the soul, that it hath found theMessias ; 
and it is called a fruit of the Spirit, because he 
produces the change from death unto life; and also 
the evidence of the change. 

3. Peace is the third fruit. Being justified by 
faith, we have peace with God. By nature we are 
enemies ; the carnal mind is enmity against God. 
Now to be at enmity and war with a power vastly 
beyond our own, is a painful and distressing condi- 
tion : and to stand in that relation with the Al- 
mighty, is fearful indeed. But God is angry with 
the wicked every day, and his anger burns with in- 

12 



134 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

tense fierceness, and must in the end devour his 
adversaries. Oh how desirable then to be restored 
to peace ! But this peace is purchased by the 
death of our Blessed Lord. He is our Peace. How 
then is it a fruit of the Spirit ? Because, though 
the price has been paid, yet actual peace on our 
part does not exist, until the heart is changed, the 
enmity slain, and reconciliation in fact restored. 
This is the work of the Spirit, and hence it is classed 
as here. 

We ought however to remark, that it is not only 
peace with God, but also with all holy beings : just 
as the first fruit extends its blessed influence, as 
w T ell to the children of God, as to their Father in 
heaven. This peace pervades the entire family of 
holy intelligences — a peace, therefore, that passeth 
understanding. 

4. Long-suffering is a modification of love and 
peace. It is spoken of God, Rom. ii. 4, and ix. 22 : 
u Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and 
forbearance, and long-suffering. " — " God endured 
with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted 
to destruction.' ' In Eph. iv. 2, it is applied to 
men — "With long-suffering, forbearing one another 
in love." Patient endurance — bearing long — and 
not soon angry at sinners, out of a feeling of friend- 
ship and love, seems to be the general idea. And 
that such should be the consequence of the love of 
God and the peace which passeth all understanding 
shed abroad in the heart, by the Spirit, is most 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 135 

reasonable to expect. Hence this is accounted in 
the number of these gracious fruits. 

5. Gentleness, suavity, amiability, freedom from 
stiff and surly temper. It is very difficult to mark 
the boundaries between this and the 8th fruit, meek- 
ness — unassuming mildness, softness of tempera- 
ment. They combine and in fact commingle ; but 
express qualities greatly productive of Christian 
harmony and promotive of happy intercourse in 
society. 

6. The sixth fruit, in order, we must treat in the 
same way. We have so few words in our language 
expressive of the various shades of moral emotions, 
that we can find no one to mark the precise phase 
of the emotional states. G-oodness is perhaps the 
most suitable, though evidently very general. This 
presents a feeling very nearly allied to the first ; 
it leads toward such actions as conduce to the hap- 
piness of all around. 

7. The seventh in order is faith, used here in the 
sense of confidence: freedom from a spirit of distrust 
and jealousy: a moral virtue, rather than the great 
leading grace, of which we have already spoken. 

9. Temperance, continence, self-control. This 
may have reference to what is now technically 
called "temperance." Rather, however, it refers 
to control over the sexual feeling. At least it is 
much broader than recent custom has allowed. 
Peter places it in his catalogue of virtues thus, 
2 Pet. i. 5, 6 : " And besides this, giving all dili- 



136 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

gence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue, 
knowledge ; and to knowledge, temperance ; and 
to temperance, patience; and to patience, godli- 
ness." Paul (Titus i. 8, 22,) enjoins on bishops 
and aged men to be temperate: and, 1 Cor. ix. 25, 
tells us, that " every man that striveth for the 
mastery — (such as the athletse in the Grecian 
games) — is temperate in all things." 

Such are among the beneficial consequences of 
this work of the Spirit. In perfecting the moral 
virtues and the Christian graces, he leads the minds 
and hearts of the saints onward by successful steps, 
perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord. "The 
path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth 
more and more unto the perfect day :" Proverbs 
iv. 18. 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 137 



CHAPTER XXI. 

SANCTIFICATION IMPERFECT — OBJECTION. 

Whatever may be properly called a process or 
progressive work, must, by the very necessities of 
its own nature, be imperfect, at some point ; or, in- 
deed, at an indefinite number of points in the line 
of its progress. The point at which the movement 
stops ; and when there is no more corrupt affection 
to be removed; or at which the soul is never, hence- 
forth, to acquire any increment of holy feeling, of 
heavenly love, its sanctification may be accounted 
perfect ; although it is plain, that the word perfect is 
used there in an imperfect sense. It is altogether 
undeniable, that the great body of Christians have 
felt and do feel upon themselves a burden of sinful 
desires. And this is especially so with such as are 
most eminent for good works. " Brethren, I count 
not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing 
I do, forgetting those things that are behind, and 
reaching forth to those things which are before, I 
press toward the mark, for the prize of the high 
calling of God in Christ Jesus;" Phil. iii. 12, &c. 
" For I know that in me (that is in my flesh) dwell- 
12 * 



138 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

eth no good thing : for to will is present with me ; 
but how to perform that which is good, I find not. 
* * * But I see another law in my members, 
warring against the law of my mind, and bringing 
me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my 
members :" Rom. vii. 18, 23. " For the flesh lust- 
eth against the spirit, and the spirit against the 
flesh ; and these are contrary, the one to the other ; 
so that ye cannot do the things that ye would :" 
Gal. v. 17. Hundreds of texts might be adduced 
containing this humble and self-abasing confession. 
The apostle John indeed asserts, " He that commit- 
teth sin is of the devil"— belongs to the family of 
Satan. But then, the drift of the context shows, 
that he speaks of the habitual course of action: 
the man whose business is to commit sin — who is 
constantly seeking the gratification of fleshly lusts, 
is not born of God. On the contrary, a little be- 
fore, i. 8 : "If we say we have no sin, we deceive 
ourselves, and the truth is not in us. * * * 
If we say, that we have not sinned, we make him 
[God] a liar, and his word is not in us." " For 
there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good 
and sinneth not :" Eccl. vii. 20. To me, the idea 
is a paradox inconceivable, of a human being — for 
we cannot say, a sinner — on his knees in the closet, 
duly exercising faith in Jesus Christ, and yet not 
confessing his personal sins and short-comings, and 
beseeching his Father, who seeth in secret, to for- 
give him, for his dear Son's sake. Such a closet 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 139 

occupied by such a Christian, such a Father's om- 
niscient eye hath surely never beheld. Oh no ; 
when Christians fall down in secret or even in so- 
cial prayer, their speculations about sinless perfec- 
tion are all and instantly a nullity, and they seek 
forgiveness ; and moreover, they cry for more 
grace, that they may become more holy and active 
in fruit-bearing to the glory of God. These two 
constitute the sum of Christian religious experi- 
ence, viz., the conflict — the war against "sin that 
dwelleth in us;" and the pressing on in the ways 
of holy obedience, " My soul followeth hard after 
thee." 

Now, from this conscious imperfection of the 
Divine life within him, the true Christian often 
meets with a practical difficulty, so great at times 
as to raise doubts, painful and distressing, as to 
the fact of his own conversion. As in the conflict 
between Saul and David — which is a real, historical 
allegory, illustrative of this very point — he is so 
sorely pressed, that he says " in his heart, I shall 
now perish one day by the hand of Saul :" 1 Sam. 
xxvii. 1. But these seasons of doubt pass away; 
" And there was long war between the house of 
Saul and the house of David ; but David waxed 
stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul 
waxed weaker and weaker:" 2 Sam. iii. 1. So 
shall it be in the long war against sin that dwelleth 
in us ; the victory is sure in the end, and this is 
the victory that overcometh the world, even our 



140 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

faith. It may be well for us, however, to inquire 
how it comes, that to the Christian himself he 
often ^appears to be retrograding, or at least to be 
gaining almost nothing in the life of holiness ; 
whilst to other Christians, and even to the world, 
he seems to become every day more like his divine 
Master. The solution is this. The longer and the 
more steadfastly he gazes upon the cross and the 
face of his divine Lord, the holier he appears, and 
thus the Christian's standard rises faster than he 
himself rises ; he, like Moses, having no glass in 
which to behold himself, remains unconscious of 
the change upon himself. Others can see the 
shining of his face, even to the dazzling of their 
eyes ; whilst the brightness of the Saviour's glory 
absorbs his vision, and he conceives himself to be 
relatively, as it were, falling back. The stars dis- 
appear when the sun rises. When the day-star of 
Jacob arises, the soul is able to survey it distinctly 
and to admire its twinkling beauties ; but when the 
Sun of righteousness approximates the zenith and 
bursts in upon it with all his effulgence, all mere 
reflections of its light are lost in the overwhelming 
blaze of his glory. 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 141 



CHAPTER XXII. 

SANCTIFICATION COMPLETED, NEGATIVELY — RE- 
MARKS ON IDENTITY. 

The question closes in upon us : must this im- 
perfection continue evermore ? Is this warfare to 
last for ever ? In this race, is the goal never to be 
reached ? Oh ! when, if " by one offering he hath 
perfected for ever them that are sanctified :" Heb. 
x. 14, — oh when shall it be ? We answer, as to 
the negative side of sanctification, at death ; as to 
the positive, in eternity ; that is, never. 

Sanctification, negatively considered, is perfected 
at death. " The souls of believers are, at their 
death, made perfect in holiness, and do immediately 
pass into glory." This is a necessary consequence 
of the doctrine, that without holiness no man shall 
see the Lord. Heaven is everywhere in Scripture 
accounted a holy place and state : " No unclean 
person hath any inheritance in the kingdom of 
Christ and of God:" Eph. v. 5. And Gal. v. 19 
-21 : " Now the works of the flesh are manifest, 
which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, 
&c. ; of which I tell you before, as I have also 



142 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

told you in time past, that they which do such 
things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." 
" Depart from me, ye cursed, I never knew you." 
" God is angry with the wicked every day." And 
all the proofs for the necessity of regeneration, 
are also proofs that this purifying process must be 
perfected before the soul can dwell with God in 
heaven. 

Take along with this the fact, that whenever the 
soul is released from the body it is present with 
the Lord. Reject the pagan notion of purgatory ; 
and the Priestleyan c^eam of an entirely uncon- 
scious sleep from death to the resurrection ; and 
you force us upon the conclusion, that the war 
against fleshly lusts ceases, the goal of negative 
holiness is reached ; all actual pollution is entirely 
done away, at death. The last of the Canaanites 
is driven out of the land. The old man, who was 
nailed on the cross, in the day when thorough 
conviction entered the soul, and who has been 
dying gradually, but surely, now heaves his last 
sigh and expires. 

Positive sanctification is an endless process. 
We have already seen — Chap. XVII., that the law 
of progress characterizes the whole department of 
life — the vegetable and the animal kingdoms ; the 
intellectual and rational ; the moral and spiritual. 
Life connected with material organism has its 
limits under this law ; because of the repulsive and 
destructive nature of material substance. But life 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 143 

in the intelligence and the reason is an ever on- 
ward movement ; knowledge is always increasing, 
and the reasoning powers expand by their own ac- 
tivity, throughout the whole range of our acquaint- 
ance with them, over the whole field of our ob- 
servation. The moral sense improves continually 
by its legitimate action ; and the moral virtues in- 
crease their power in the same way. 

So also, within the region of spiritual life, growth 
in grace is the law, retardation or retrogression, 
real or apparent, is the exception. External vio- 
lence or an unfavourable season, excessive drought 
or blight, may cause a temporary pause ; but the 
current of life is not broken up : still its move- 
ment is onward — the tree grows. 

Here, then, we meet the most interesting ques- 
tion. Does the soul in any or all of these four 
aspects — intellectual, rational, moral, or spiritual, 
cease its growth at death? Or does the law of pro- 
gress pass with it beyond the grave ? Our re- 
sponse is, that, All the analogies of God's living 
creations return a negative to the former ; and an 
affirmative answer to the latter. They all go to 
shut us up to the belief of a progression without 
end in all these four respects. Bishop Butler, in 
his "immortal Analogy," has settled this question; 
and we suppose it is one of the rare cases that 
will stay settled. He has demonstrated, by their 
own most clear and energetic force, that there is 
no reason whatever to believe that any of our 



144 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

living powers are extinguished and lost for ever. 
To the high argument in his first chapter we refer 
the reader. Our brief pages will not admit of its 
transfer, and its solidity renders it incompressible. 
To attempt an epitome were presumption. Yet, 
whilst the reader is studying it, we must be in- 
dulged in a few remarks, adapted to open up the 
way; and to enable us to present the argument 
for an endless progression in the future world. 

1. Identity, or sameness of being, is assumed in 
the preceding discussion on progress. Without 
this, the very idea of onward movement in life is 
not conceivable. Continuity of existence is the in- 
dispensable basis of progress. What then is 
identity ? 

(1) This question is inapplicable to mere dead 
matter, until you descend to the first element — the 
atom- — the indivisible particle. For, obviously, all 
combinations of material particles are fortuitous 
and for ever undergoing changes. Therefore, 

(2) When we speak of sameness in reference to 
masses of matter, we always have reference to some 
kind of agglomeration, arrangement, or organiza- 
tion ; as a carriage, a ship, a tree, an animal, a 
man. And in all these, absolute sameness of 
material particles is never meant to be affirmed. 
On the contrary, there is a constant changing of 
atoms. The carriage loses at every turn of its 
wheels. The ship loses a sail, a rope, a spar, a 
mast, a plank, a rib, from day to day ; and these 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 145 

are replaced as need requires, until nearly every 
several part of the vessel is new ; and yet it is the 
same identical vessel still. So, the tree— this tow- 
ering cedar, is the same that fifteen centuries ago 
had well nigh perished under the hoof of the pass- 
ing buffalo ; although, meanwhile, it has lost in 
leaves and branches ten thousand times its origi- 
nal bulk. So, of the buffalo himself; this huge 
beast is the same animal which a few years since 
a man might take up and carry under his arm. So 
of the man himself; he is the same animal that 
nursing mother dandled on her knee. Therefore, 

(3) Within the sphere of dead matter, identity 
consists not in absolute sameness of particles; but 
in sameness of form, structure and name, which 
gives unity of idea. In the lower forms of living 
things, identity consists in unity and sameness of 
the life-principle : the life of the seedling is abso- 
lutely the same as that of the towering cedar. So 
the animal — brute and human — as to its material 
part is similar, in its perpetual changes, to the tree 
or the ship : but its life is the same identical prin- 
ciple that actuated its infantile movements. 

2. Whilst our animal part is subject to the laws 
common to all of that class, our soul is altogether 
different. The human animal, whilst it is united 
with an intelligent, rational spirit, constitutes really 
no essential part of the human personality. The 
material substance, with which our spirit is here 
connected, is no part of ourselves. If I shave or 
18 



146 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFlCATION. 

cut off my hair ; if blood is drawn from my veins or 
my limbs are amputated, my identity is no more 
affected than is that of a tree when autumn strips 
off its leaves. I myself — this intelligent, conscious, 
reasoning, feeling, conscientious, active being, am 
the same identical person that I was before this 
bodily organization was reduced by hunger, ampu- 
tation, disease, to the twentieth part of its former 
bulk. My hearing fails, my eyes go out, and I am 
left in darkness ; my sense of taste and of smell 
are nearly extinct, and feeling is paralyzed ; still 
I am the same man. It is not the eye that sees, 
any more than the optic glass : this glass stands in 
the same precise relation to the operation of vision, 
as does the eye-ball. Equally and alike, the living 
organ and the dead, are merely instruments with 
which the mind or soul sees. And so it is with all 
the other senses. By a mysterious and hitherto 
inscrutable connection, the thinking being, myself, 
uses certain, parts of this nervous structure as in- 
struments of perception ; but the mode of that con- 
nection and use is utterly unknown to us. The 
senses are indeed inlets of knowledge to the soul 
within ; but when knowledge is let in, even in small 
quantity, the mind acts independently on the body. 
This is evident from two facts : first, where the 
senses fail, or are originally deficient, as in the 
case of Julia Brace, the mind does not lose its 
power of action. And secondly, It is known to 
every one who thinks at all, that his processes of 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 147 

reasoning are carried on best when the bodily 
organs of sensation are most thoroughly shut up. 
On the contrary, noise, odours, taste, smell, touch 
— any excitation of the nervous system by them 
arrests the operations of thinking and creates con- 
fusion in the mind. 

3. Identity consists of continued existence 
through successive portions of time ; and it is de- 
pendent on the Divine Power. Our knowledge of 
it is obtained from present consciousness of our 
present activity, combined with the remembrance 
of past consciousness. If the power of memory 
had no existence, we could have no knowledge of 
our personal identity. I could not know that I am 
the same person, who wrote Chapter XX. yester- 
day for I could have no knowledge of past time 
and its contents. Now, memory is not a bodily 
organ, but a mental power. Lord Nelson was still 
the glory of England's navy, after half his body 
was cut away. His personal identity was not af- 
fected, nor did he lose half his memory. General 
Howard is more of a man to-day and has more 
power of memory, than most men who have two 
arms and two legs. Let us now return to the 
question of eternal progression in holiness. 



148 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 



CHAPTER XXIIL 

THE LAW OF PROGRESS PASSES BEYOND THE GRAVE 
— SANCTIFICATION POSITIVE — AN ETERNAL ON- 
WARD MOVEMENT. 

There being no reason whatever to believe, that 
we lose, at the death of the body, any one of our 
living powers ; and the fact being indubitable, that 
they are all governed by the law of progress, so far 
as we have knowledge of them, and so far as they 
are not checked and restrained by their present 
connection with these clogs of clay ; and it being a 
law of logic which is eternal, and also accordant 
with the common sense of all mankind, that the 
uniform course of events heretofore will continue 
to be the course of events hereafter ; we are shut 
up to the conviction, that these living powers will 
continue to exist, after they drop the last fragment- 
ary clog of clay : and will continue to act under 
the same law of onward and upward for ever. If 
any man question this doctrine, let him adduce his 
proof. Possession is nine points of the law. If 
you dispute my title, bring your ejectment and try 
its strength : the burden of proof lies upon you. 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 149 

There is, as Butler has shown, no other reason, 
apart from revelation, for belief in any future 
course of events, but our knowledge of the past 
course — that is, the established laws of nature, or 
order of things which God has ordained, will and 
must continue, until he sees proper to alter them. 
The existence of such laws — that is, of uniform an- 
tecedence and consequence, is the sole foundation 
of all inductive reasoning and the sciences which it 
generates. Root up this foundation, and the entire 
glorious structures of the modern experimental 
philosophy tumble into ruins and become a vast 
chaotic mass. 

Here then we take our stand. On the continu- 
ance of this law of progress in the human spirit, as 
on Pisgah's top, we place our feet, and look over the 
Jordan into the promised land. If this doctrine 
be not true, then it would follow, that, 

1. Reasoning from what has been the order of 
nature, to what will be, is fallacious. The uniform 
course of the soul of man — the intelligence, the 
reason, the moral man and the spiritual — hitherto 
has been onward and upward, but now, that it is 
freed from clogs of clay, it stops and advances to- 
ward perfection no more. 

2. The entire analogies of God's living creations 
— yea, of his works universal, are broken up. From 
the first movement upon the chaotic mass, toward 
consummating the work of creation, arrangement, 
order, advancement, onward and upward, are the 

13 * 



150 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

law. But now, at the very point where rea- 
son expects not only the continuance, but a greatly 
accelerated velocity in the heaven-ward movement, 
this philosophy commands a halt. Who believes it ? 

3. If sanctification — growth in all the holy affec- 
tions — does not continue after death, then was Paul 
in great error, when he said, " I have a desire to 
depart and to be with Christ, which is far better ;" 
Phil. i. 23 ; for he knew and gloried in the fact 
that he was advancing in holiness, by fighting the 
good fight and pressing on toward the goal of vic- 
tory. This is the law of his being here, but on the 
hypothesis we combat, this progress ceases at death. 
Obviously then, he had better remain in this condi- 
tion of perpetual advancement, than to pass into a 
state where there is no farther growth toward the 
perfection of God. 

4. This doctrine nullifies the universal law of 
morality, that holy action must be rewarded. For 
if there is to be no increase in holiness after death 
— if the soul is to remain stationary, then, either 
there are no holy activities, or they go unrewarded. 
But if the doctrine of our second and third chapters 
is true, and increase in happiness is a moral conse- 
quence of holy action unavoidable in the Divine 
government, then are we thrown back upon the 
glorious and soul-stirring conclusion, that everlast- 
ing progress in holiness, and consequently in hap- 
piness, is the law of God's redeemed. 

5. Nor let it be supposed on the other extreme, 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIEICATION. 151 

that this law is inoperative in the previous stages 
of the divine life in the soul. On the contrary, 
Ave hold that, from the new birth onward, all the 
activities of the new creature are rewarded in the 
strictest sense. The parable of the talents illus- 
trates this : and also, the promise of grace to the 
humble : the cup of cold water is rewarded : out 
" of his fulness have all we received, and grace for 
grace " — one measure of grace faithfully improved 
ensures another — and James iv. 6, says, " But he 
giveth more grace, wherefore he saith, God re- 
sisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the hum- 
ble." In short, the Bible overflows with this idea, 
of God's giving grace and then rewarding the ac- 
tivities of it by more enlarged communications of 
the same. These promises are, however, to the 
faithful, the believing, the regenerate, the holy. 
Not to those who have no grace at all is the com- 
mand to grow in grace given, and the promise of 
more. And here is a lamentable mistake into 
which unregenerate men often fall. They trans- 
mute the promises addressed to believers into a law 
of works, and make their own doings, their " dead 
works," Heb. ix. 14, a condition of salvation. 
How unphilosophical ! how absurd, to suppose that 
the tree can grow when it has no life ! " First 
make the tree good and his fruit good." "Do men 
gather grapes off thorns or figs off thistles ?" 

With this, (which is in fact the foundation prin- 
ciple of inductive science) we have a cause, and 



152 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

may look for its effect. This seed of God remain- 
ing in him — this " anointing which ye have re- 
ceived of him abiding in you, you need not that any 
man teach you : but as the same anointing teacheth 
you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and 
even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him:" 
1 John iii. 27, and iv. 9. "He that believeth on 
the Son hath everlasting life." — How is it ever- 
lasting, if it may and shall cease to-morrow? — 
" He that hath begun a good work in you, will per- 
form it unto the day of Jesus Christ :" Phil. i. 6. 
"And I give unto them eternal life ; and they shall 
never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of 
my hand :" John x. 28, 29. The Scriptures 
abundantly teach the perseverance of the saints in 
grace and holiness. Not, you will observe, the 
perseverance in grace of the ungodly, the unregen- 
erate, the unholy ; but of the saints, the believing, 
the regenerate. Nor is their perseverance the ef- 
fect of their merely human resolve and firm deter- 
mination, but of the Divine Spirit's inhabitation 
and "working in them to will and to do of his good 
pleasure." This one doctrine of endless progres- 
sion in holiness, beginning with regeneration and 
advancing under the culture of the Spirit that 
dwelleth in us, involves the perseverance of the 
saints ; and at the same time gives us a beautiful 
philosophical explanation of the whole matter. 

Seizing the prime element of moral government ; 
viz., that upright, holy action must be rewarded; 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 153 

and providing the germ of holy life in the new 
birth ; and the growth of it by the dews of hea- 
venly grace, it forces us along the glorious ascent. 
The first pulsations of spiritual life flow forth to- 
ward God in acts of faith, and repentance, and 
love, and new obedience ; and these holy acts re- 
quire and receive their reward, in additional 
strength and grace, and love shed abroad in the 
heart by the indwelling Spirit. Then the soul, 
with this increment of the new life-power, braces 
itself up for increased activity in all the duties of 
holy living ; and pours forth its gratitude and em- 
bodies its more ardent love in doing good to man 
and giving glory to God. Again, these increased 
activities call forth increased rewards ; and thus 
the Christian's life is a fire that feeds itself : by the 
necessities of the new nature which God has given 
and by the laws of the glorious Giver, it must be 
onward and upward. 

And for proof of this, we appeal to the experi- 
ence of regenerate sinners, the world over. Such 
is their testimony in all ages and to the end of this 
pilgrim life. For, 

" This life's a dream, an empty show ; 
But the bright world to which I go, 
Hath joys substantial and sincere; 
When shall I wake and find me there ? 

glorious hour ! blest abode ! 

1 shall be near and like my God, 
And flesh and sin no more control 
The sacred pleasures of the soul," 



154 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

That the onward movement should here receive 
no new impulse, is not conceivable. The control- 
ling influence of flesh and sin being abolished at 
death, the freed spirit bounds forward and upward 
with an alacrity and an energy utterly inconceiv- 
able by us in this present state. " Eye hath not 
seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the 
heart of man, the things which God hath prepared 
for them that love him:" 1 Cor. ii. 9. " Beloved, 
now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet 
appear what we shall be ; but we know that, when 
he shall appear, we shall be like him ; for we shall 
see him as he is :" 1 John iii. 2. With more than 
angelic wing the soul takes its upward flight. 
Higher and yet higher it soars aloft. Passing un- 
redeemed angels in its glorious ascent, it takes its 
position in the grand choir — that immense multi- 
tude which no man can number. These all " ar- 
rayed in that fine linen which is the righteousness 
of the saints:" Rev. xix. 8, and holding in their 
hands their golden harps, they strike notes of 
praise to redeeming love, in strains so lofty and 
grand that angels might long to equal. Then, ac- 
cording to the law of their being and of their God, 
they receive an addition to their holiness, and 
grace, and power to strike a still higher strain ; 
and thus, it is a fire that feeds itself; onward and 
upward; onward and upward for ever toward 
the perfection of God. And this, dear reader, is 
what I meant, by asserting, that your sanctifica- 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 155 

tion, if indeed it be begun, will never, on the posi- 
tive side, be finished — but will run away into eter- 
nity. Oh ! how important then for you and for 
me, to look well to the matter, and see that there 
be no "if indeed it be begun" in our case — that 
all doubt be removed from the question of our be- 
ing born again ! 



A \ S ■ I > [1 \ 



CHAPTEK XXIV. 

\ | \ Ri \ SS 
LKD Bl 188; NOT an . n . 

\ v. 

h — 

lis and 

puss dor the ied He- 

••v 1 It ssed of im 

inln a - ft for the 

Idt" M ; i. All 

the n o 

D : WCCepl judgmei ieh, howovev. ne- 

aess; k i enes, [n some res it had 

as frell them sooner: but inoth 

e irith thorn. 
u ^ 'v should it be thou. incred 

with vou, that God should dead! 

rxvi, >. ;il insinuates, that on 

, by the light of reason and the dim 

tit revelations, to ha 

rived at belief in ft resurreetion. Re Mid tra- 



A n:i.\Ti i. OM SANOTIFIOATIOH, 1 J>7 

dition lead to the belief that justice in some de- 
< l is a Divine attribute. But that full and per- 
fect justice is administered here, in this world, Is 
manifestly not true. Wicked men prosper, live 
happy, as they count happiness, op] he poor 

and the upright; and die without due punishment. 
David, in Psalm Ixxiii., discusses this subject. 

tc For I was envious at the foolish, when I s;t\v the 

prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands 
in their death, but (heir strength is firm. They 

are QOt troubled as other men; neither are they 

plagued like other men. * * When I 

though! to know this, it was too painful forme; 
until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I 
understood (heir end." He was almost ready to 
conclude, there is no just (Jod presiding over the 
World. But when he went into the sanctmiry — 
When he consulted the Divine teaching, and con- 
sidered the end or final state of the ungodly, his 

doubts vanished, Ids faith triumphed over his cogi- 
tations — "Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, 

and afterward receive me to glory." tw The Avicked 

shall he turned into hell, and all the nations that 
forgel (iod:" Pb. ix. -Then shall the righteous 

shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Fa- 
ther:' 1 Matt. xiii. 48. Thus, the idea that a, just 

(Jod governs the universe, involves the necessity 

of a future judgment; and a future judgment of 

man involves the necessity of a resurrection, in 

order that the human persons not the souk not 

u 



158 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

the bodies, but the entire persons, soul and body 
united, may pass before the Judge and receive a 
just sentence. Hence " there shall be a resurrec- 
tion of the dead, both of the just and unjust :" 
Acts xxiv. 15. Objections to this doctrine, based 
on the difficulties about identity, the reader of 
Chapter XXII. will, we hope, find no difficulty in re- 
futing ; and especially if he turn to 1 Cor. xv. and 
read Paul's refutation, deduced from the analogies 
of nature. 

In this work, the Spirit of God, who is the great 
power of Christ, breathes into the body spiritual 
that mysterious life which is proper to its nature : 
and as to the redeemed, of whose resurrection only 
the apostle treats, it is a movement in sanctification. 
Then follows the judgment. "Because hghath 
appointed a day, in which he will judge the world 
in righteousness, by that man whom he hath or- 
dained : whereof he hath given assurance unto all 
men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." 
Acts xvii. 31. This judgment, like all other just 
judgments, is simply declaratory. It does not 
make the wicked, wicked ; or the righteous, right- 
eous. It simply declares the pre-existent facts of 
the actual moral character and legal relations of 
the parties judged ; the evidence thereof in the 
previously developed holy or unholy lives of the 
parties ; and the inevitable legal consequences : — 
" Some to everlasting life ; and some to shame and 
everlasting contempt:" Dan. xii. 2. "And these 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIEICATION. 159 

shall go away into everlasting punishment : but the 
righteous into life eternal:" Matt. xxv. 46. The 
same word, in the original, is used to define the 
duration of the punishment and of the life : and 
this dread sentence is a confirmation, equally and 
alike, of the two classes respectively ; the one in a 
state of misery inconceivable ; the other in a state 
of happiness incomprehensible. No change of 
character and condition can ever take place. 
Change, indeed, in degree of happiness or misery, 
there may be — there must be : but change in con- 
dition, never. 

For we must farther remark, that confirmation, 
whilst it is an end of probation, is not an end of 
moral government. As before stated, we cannot 
even conceive of an intelligent moral agent exist- 
ing outside of moral government — not accountable 
for his actions to the God of the universe. " Why 
dost thou strive. against him ? for he giveth no ac- 
count of his matters:" Job xxxiii. 13. The 
Creator is the only irresponsible intelligence in the 
universe which he made. All are accountable, and 
for ever must and will be, to the universal Governor. 
Consequently, neither of these classes that pass 
away from the judgment-seat of Jesus Christ, 
pass away from under the Divine government. 
Both, on the contrary, continue subjects of his 
almighty administration. Therefore he says, 
" Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the king- 
dom prepared for you," &c. They continue in his 



160 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

kingdom, and subject to his government for ever. 
The righteous are now officially recognized as 
citizens of the everlasting kingdom. They can go 
no more out, for they are " pillars in the temple of 
my God." The Divine power and faithfulness are 
for ever pledged to keep them in the love of God 
and the love of God in them. Indeed, the idea, 
that Jesus is a confirming head of moral influences 
to the angelic hosts, that have ever shown such 
alacrity in his service ; and also to the entire uni- 
verse of virtuous intelligences, is so grand, and 
glorious, and magnificent, that my heart bounds 
with joy at its conception, whilst my ttnderstand- 
ing adoringly refuses to raise a doubt by way of 
objection. But to illustrate and defend a thought 
which throws such a halo of glory around the 
manger, Gethsemane, and the cross, in the closing 
chapter of a work so small as this, is utterly im- 
practicable, and must, at least for the present, be 
waived ; that we may attend for a moment to some 
consequences of the saints' confirmation in the 
everlasting kingdom. 

1. Peccability — liability to fall into sin is no part 
of virtue. The opposite has been affirmed. Dr. 
Priestley and others who deny the divinity of Christ, 
and affirm him to be, or to have been, a mere man, 
have also added, fallible : Christ was a fallible man. 
And these fallible men argue, that, whilst he never 
did fall into sin ; yet he must have been liable 
thereto, or he could not be virtuous : thus making 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 161 

sin, not only incidental to any moral system, as 
does the New Haven divinity ; but liability to sin 
— peccability, an essential requisite in the character 
of Him who saves his people from their sins. 

2. The saints in glory, after the judgment, be- 
ing still members of the kingdom of God and, by 
reason of their confirmation in bliss, incapable of 
any but holy actions, must move onward toward 
perfection, in a vastly increased ratio. All that 
has just been said of the souls after death in this 
regard, is equally, yea, more abundantly, true of 
the entire sanctified humanity : and thus again, we 
see how and why the life beyond the judgment 
must be an everlasting progress in holiness. The 
holiness and the happiness are eternal parallels. 

Let it not be objected, that the saints will be- 
come as holy and as happy as God himself. We 
will admit the inference as legitimate, if only you 
will prove that God is finite in holiness and in hap- 
piness. But as he is infinite, no number of finite 
steps toward him can constitute an approximation, 
much less an arrival. 

Nor yet, let the suggestion be entertained that 
the saints in glory are never perfectly happy : for 
the semblance of difficulty here depends simply 
upon the vagueness of the term perfect. Here are 
two vessels, one a pint measure, the other a gallon. 
Now pour water into both until it overflows. Are 
they not both perfectly full ? And yet how differ- 
ent the bulk and amount ? So the saints in glory 
14 * 



162 A TKEATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

differ in advancement and capacity ; but the capa- 
city of each and every one is full to overflowing. 
They are all perfectly blessed. 

One more aspect of the law of progress, it may 
be profitable to notice : although it is not strictly 
within our grand topic of sanctification. It is the 
fearful question, does the law of progress rule in 
the world of woe ? Do those who " go away into 
everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his an- 
gels" — into "the lake that burneth with fire and 
brimstone : which is the second death :" Rev. xxi. 
8 — do they grow in wickedness and power to resist 
God ? Is the pit of destruction properly called, 
the abyss, "the bottomless pit?" Rev. xx. 2, 3. 
" Tophet is ordained of old, yea for the king it is 
prepared ; he hath it deep and large : the pile 
thereof is fire and much wood ; the breath of the 
Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it :" 
Isa. xxx. 33. Is there anything in the analogies 
of the two cases, that shuts us up to the terrible 
conviction, that hell is without a bottom as well as 
without an end ? With trembling heart let us utter 
a few remarks. 

1. The torments of the wicked — the finally impen- 
itent and unbelieving, who despise the overtures of 
God's mercy and grace, who "trample under foot 
the Son of God and put him to an open shame, and 
do despite unto the Spirit of grace" — the torments 
of the wicked are without end. The self-same word 
used by the Judge upon his great white throne, 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 163 

to describe the duration of heaven, is also used to 
describe the duration of the fire that is never 
quenched. Other terms equally explicit might be 
adduced, but we forbear. 

2. The wicked, as we have seen, are still subjects 
of the Divine government, and must for ever re- 
main so. Unless we are prepared for the blasphe- 
mous doctrine, that they have sinned themselves 
out from and beyond God's power, we must believe 
them accountable for all their actions. But now 
all their acts are sinful, and therefore must be pun- 
ished. 

3. There is nothing in punishment to generate 
love toward the law and the governor that executes 
punishment : but directly the reverse. Hatred of 
God, therefore, and of his law necessarily result 
from the endurance of penal evil. Therefore, 

4. Purgatory— a place of punishment, where, by 
painful endurance, the wretched sinner is cleansed 
like a foetid clay pipe, from his pollution, and his 
heart prepared for the exercise of love and holi- 
ness, is about the most unphilosophical conceit the 
devil ever invented to delude lost men. The blood 
of Calvary is unavailing ; the strivings of the Holy 
Ghost are resisted successfully; the cries and tears, 
and entreaties of his friends, and the whole church — 
all fall upon the heart of stone without melting it into 
contrition, penitence, and love. Now send him to 
purgatory. Let the devil try him — he'll soon 
change him. Soon the wicked wretch will be con- 



164 A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 

verted, his heart melted into love, and he become 
fit for an habitation in glory. The blasphemy is 
as horrible as the philosophy is absurd. Oh sin- 
ner, trust not to purgatory, but to the blood of 
Christ. 

5. The just punishment (as in remark 2) occa- 
sions (not causes) an increase in wicked actions ; 
this increased activity in sin calls for additional 
punishment ; and thus onward without end. It is 
a fearful fire that feeds il^elf : and thus is ensured 
an eternity of torment, because here is an eternity 
of sinning. The wretched inhabitant of the burn- 
ing lake buffets its billows with sinewy arms, and 
blasphemes the God of justice. Then comes a thun- 
derbolt of Divine wrath, justly due for his recent 
sin, and sinks him deeper into the fiery flood. 
Again, rising in increased fury, he belches out the 
fiery liquid, mixed with still more horrid curses 
and blasphemy against God, whose justice and 
holiness again thunder him down to a more pro- 
found depth : and thus the worm never dies — the 
fire is never quenched. 

" Sad world indeed ; ah ! who can bear 
Eor ever there to dwell ? 
For ever sinking in despair, 
In all the pains of hell V 

And now, dear readers, we must part. At the 
intersection of two planes we stand. Along one or 
the other we must move ; there is not a third. One 
ascends beyond the moon, and sun, and planets, 



A TREATISE ON SANCTIFICATION. 165 

and milky way, and all the stars of God; and loses 
itself in the cloudless effulgence of the Sun of 
righteousness — that Sun which set in blood on 
Calvary, but burst the darkness and bondage of the 
grave and arose to the zenith of his glory and 
power ; and now illumines and controls the desti- 
nies of the universe. The other plane descends, 
cutting the regions of darkness and old night, 
where no ray from the glorious Sun ever enters ; 
no harp to praise redeeming love ever quivers in 
the exulting soul — hope dies, and long despair 
reigns in eternal silence there. 

On which of these do you stand ? Along which 
are you moving ? I say moving, for stationary 
you cannot be. Ah ! do you hesitate ? Are you 
in doubt ? Oh ! why delay an hour ? no time should 
be lost. " Behold I stand at the door and knock ; 
if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will 
come in to him and will sup with him, and he with 
me:" Rev. iii. 20. And for your farther encou- 
ragement, there stands, Luke xi. 13, the heart- 
cheering promise, and the resistless argument, 
" If ye then, being evil, know how to give good 
gifts unto your children : how much more shall 
your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them 
that ask him?" 



INDEX. 



A. PAGE 

Ability, Three Kinds 28 

Afflictions, Means of Sanctifica- 
tion 121 

B. 

Baptism, A Means of Sanctifica- 

tion 123 

Bates, — Quotation from 50 

Beatific Vision 23 

Believing, Distinguished from 

Faith 103 

Blessed, Two Words so Translated 

—Explained 22 

Butler, Bp., Quotation from 144 

C. 

Confirmation, not an End of Moral 

Agency 159 

Conscience, Terrors of, not Desir- 
able 42 

Improvable Ill 

Contents 4 

Conviction of Sin 38 

Not of itself a Blessing 40 

Not Conversion, Danger of mis- 
take 41 

D. 

Death, Negative Sanctification 
completed at 141 

Doubting on account of Indwell- 
ing Sin 140 

Dreams about Spiritual Things.... 74 

E. 

Emotions or Feelings distin- 
guished from Conviction of 
Sin 74 76 

Evidences of Regeneration 70 

P. 

Faculty, New, Restored in Regen- 
eration 68 



PAGE 

Faith, A Duty and a Grace 84 89 

Distinguished from Believing.... 103 

G. 
Graces, Order of. 102 

H. 

Happiness 14 

Right Action Necessary to 15 21 

Perfection of 161 

Indefinitely Increases 162 

Holiness , 10 

Twofold, Negative, andPositive.. 11 
Holy Life, Proof of Regeneration. 97 
Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier 44 77 

I. 

Inability, Moral, a Sin 29 

No Excuse for Sin 30 

Indwelling of the Holy Ghost 80 

Intellect improvable 110 

J. 

Judgment — A confirmation in 
Bliss and in Misery 156 

Justification and Sanctification 
compared 98 

K. 

Knowledge, its Increase strength- 
ens Conscience 112 

L. 

Life 106 107 

Of Spirit 109 115 

Love of Life Universal and Ne- 
cessary to Moral Accounta- 
bility 18 

To God, Evidence of Regenera- 
tion 76 104 

167 



168 



INDEX. 



M. PAGE 

Memory necessary to Identity 147 

Mysteriousness of Regeneration... 67 

N. 

Necessity, Absolute or Conditional 59 

P. 

Perfection in Sanctification, Nega- 
tive at death; Positive in 

Eternity 139 

Perseverance in Grace a Necessity 154 
In Sin ensures Torments to be 

Eternal 156 

Prayer 129 

Preface 8 

Progress of Sanctification, Indefi- 
nite 106 

Providences, Means of Sanctifica- 
tion, War, Sickness, &c 34 

It. 

Regeneration, Holiness begun... 47 49 



PAGE 

Regeneration, its Nature, Instanta- 

neousness 55 

Soul Passive in 56 103 

Resurrection 156 

S. 
Sanctification, term defined 10 

A Work — Instrumentalities 32 

Self-love 19 

Spirit, Holy, alone gives Life 37 59 

Ministry of. 26 

T. 

Temptation, Prayer 126 

The Truth Progressive 106 115 118 

U. 
Unpardonable Sin 45 126 

W. 

Words not Vehicles of Thought... 9 








Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: August 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 

l-?nA\ 770 01 ■* -s 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 







; j 
i ' 






014 650 610 






kxHwu 




